


Total Eclipse

by atlas_of_galaxies



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Blind AU, Blind Character, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-24 12:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_of_galaxies/pseuds/atlas_of_galaxies
Summary: "To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable." -John Milton---Kaito, revived by the power of the Numeron Code, returns to his normal life. Well, perhaps it isn't quite the same.Kaito Tenjo's gone blind.





	1. Kaito Tenjo Wakes Up

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an idea I've had since literally the moment I finished Zexal, heh. Special thanks to ShadowSkiel for allowing me to yell at her about this au when it was only in its infant stage ... ah, how far it's come.  
> Anyway. *throws confetti* Enjoy the fruits of my labor because I am so emotionally drained rn.

At first, Kaito didn't realize anything was wrong.

When he finally comes to, his attention is less on himself and more on the little brother he thought he'd never see again.

Never would he have thought that it would feel so good to have those tiny, stick-like arms wrapped around him again. Haruto's face is buried in his chest, his tears staining the fabric of the thin hospital gown that hangs limply on his frame. Kaito lifts a shaking hand without complete feeling and carefully wipes his brother's face. The feeling of his soft, chubby cheeks in his protective palms once more brings tears to his eyes.

"Nii-san," Haruto sobs into his chest, his voice weak with relief. Kaito hugs his head tightly, his fingers running through his short light blue hair. It has become a bit unkempt since Kaito had left, so he concentrates on combing through it and whispering words of encouragement and reassurance that even he does not completely understand.

He catches some of his own words, however. "I'm so sorry I left you", "I'll never leave you again". He means it.

He's dimly aware of conversations going on around him – likely doctors - as he holds Haruto to himself like his life depends on it. Kaito finally notices the steady beeping that comes from a machine situated somewhere near his head: his heartbeat. He's alive.

Kaito tries to open his eyes, to escape the darkness and to look at his baby brother for the first time in too long.

But they're already open.

○○○

The first person to visit him who isn't of familial relation is Christopher Arclight.

Kaito recognizes him by the quiet way he shuts the door behind him, the click of his boots upon hospital tile, the way he wordlessly takes up one of the bedridden teen's hands in both of his.

"It worked." Kaito can hear the smile in Chris's voice. "The Numeron Code worked."

"Are you sure?" the Tenjo coughs, his chest jerking underneath his bedsheets. "Because I still feel super dead."

Chris presses a cold thumb into the inside of the shorter's wrist. His pulse responds. "Afraid not," the Arclight observes. "You still have a heartbeat."

He silently returns his hands to their original position of grasping Kaito's hand. The shorter is reminded of all those times all those years ago, when they were still teacher and student. Being the student, Kaito would often be the one to fall. But Chris was always there, extending a hand and helping him to his feet.

As Kaito grips the Arclight's hands back, he quietly notes that some things never change.

He leans back into the bed, resting his head against the stiff hospital pillow. He closes his eyes, only faintly registering that the darkness doesn't change.

"So how long was I ... dead?" The words taste weird in his mouth. It's going to take a while getting used to living in a body that should be dead and buried, decaying in a coffin somewhere six feet under.

But instead, he's in a hospital bed with the beeping of the heart monitor reminding him that he is, in fact, very much alive.

Chris's fingers rub soothing circles into his palms. "About two months," he admits.

Kaito jolts upright, and immediately, a wave of pain crashes into his body. Nausea arises in his stomach and warns him to grab any empty container nearby. Instead, he opts to curl up into himself, resting his forehead against his knees and letting out an unpleasant groan.

Chris tightens his grip on Kaito's now clammy hand in alarm. "Kaito?" he asks in a low voice. He watches the shorter clutch at his stomach with his free hand, and it dawns on Chris. He abandons his protective post and retrieves the bucket at the foot of the bed. He nudges it into the space between Kaito's chest and knees.

The Arclight takes Kaito's hand once again and squeezes it tightly in reassurance as the shorter curls his torso around the bucket and heaves. Nothing comes up.

When his stomach is done uselessly convulsing, Kaito collapses back onto his pillow. He feels absolutely drained and doesn't even have the strength to open his eyes; not that it would matter anyway. Chris removes the bucket and puts a hand to the teen's forehead, now drenched in sweat.

The Arclight curses. "They let you develop a fever," he scowls. "I'll have a word with them." He releases Kaito's hand and moves to get up.

"Wait," the Tenjo croaks, his voice hardly discernible. Chris looks back to find him staring blankly at the paneled hospital ceiling. He's surprised he has the strength to open his eyes, but is he really so weak the he can't move his gaze a few inches to the left?

"How was Haruto when I was..." Kaito trails off and bites his lip. Chris understands perfectly.

"It was hard for him," the Arclight sighs. His fingers trace the IV sticking out of Kaito's arm. "It was hard for all of us." His voice is husky.

He follows his veins down to Kaito's hand and gently squeezes it again. "But you're back with us now." Kaito's starting to drift off, but he can still hear the warmth in his former teacher's voice. "I'm glad you're okay."

He gives one last squeeze and departs from his bed. "Rest well, Kaito."

The hospitalized teen is already out cold.

○○○

Kaito's condition, worsened by his fever, continues much like this for a few weeks: drifting in and out of consciousness, and yet being unable to discern which is which unless he hears voices, or a nurse is adjusting his IV.

One particularly restless night, in his fit of seemingly unending sleep, he catches a snippet of conversation near the foot of his bed.

"...optics seem to be impaired..."

"...tested?"

"...test .... when he wakes up."

Kaito slips back into unconsciousness.

○○○

On a later occasion, he finds himself on the edge of falling into the abyss of sleep. He's about to surrender and let himself fall in when a familiar voice jolts him back into consciousness. However, it is not directed at him.

"Doctor, did your son exhibit any symptoms of ... beforehand?"

"No, he never even needed glasses ... this ... new." His father's voice.

"We thought ... went well ... But this is a new method ... not everything may have returned. Your son's ... is ... loss."

"Bullshit! My son's ... shouldn't be seen as an 'unfortunate loss'!"

Kaito wants to sit up in bed, crying for his father like he would ... twelve, thirteen years ago? He wants to sob for his father to stop yelling on his behalf, to let him be. And yet, at the same time, he longs for the protective image of his father leaning down to quiet his nightmare-induced screams, gently pushing his bangs away from his face and kissing him on the forehead, whispering to him that everything will be okay.

He wants his father to tell him that he'll be able to see again.

Instead, Kaito falls asleep.

○○○

"Kaito, I'm sure you've already found this out for yourself, but I'm afraid to tell you that you're drastically visually impaired."

The patient, who sits on the edge of his bed, facing the direction of the doctor's voice, nods. "So in other words, I'm blind."

He can feel the doctor's hesitation to agree. "...Yes," he finally admits, his voice filled with reluctance.

"Yeah. I kinda figured that out." He taps the side of his skull level with his eyes. "It's a little hard not to notice."

Does he feel bad for how sassy he's been to the doctors and nurses since he's learned the truth? Yes.

Is he going to stop? No.

The doctor shifts uncomfortably in his cushy leather seat. Kaito hides a smirk and pretends to look at his wrist – the one that doesn't have an IV sticking out of it – and gives his skin a few quick taps.

"Would you look at the time," he muses, his face still pointed towards his wrist. "I'd say it's about time for me to get released from the hospital, wouldn't you say?"

He can imagine the tired, exasperated look on the doctor's face that he doesn't have to hide from a patient that can't see it.

"I'm sorry, Kaito, but you need at least another week before we clear you for release. We would have let you go earlier, but there were ... complications." He probably gestures to the teen's sightless eyes, which is dumb not only because A) the doctor is implying Kaito doesn't know what the "complications" are but also B) Kaito can't even see his gesture.

The Tenjo groans and settles back into his bed, turning his back on the doctor. He hears the man sigh behind him.

"We'll get you more visitors to pass the time," the doctor promises. "There will be more now that you've recovered from your fever."

Kaito scowls into his pillow. It only took, what, three weeks to get over his fever? He hasn't communicated with any friends or family since Chris had visited him.

He feels totally isolated, and it sucks.

When Kaito doesn't respond, the doctor rises from his chair and gives him a pat on his shoulder. The teen tenses up at his touch, and he doesn't relax until he hears him open the door and let it shut softly behind him.

When he's certain he's gone, Kaito buries his face in his stiff hospital-issued pillow and silently cries.

○○○

Kaito is sitting up in bed, face directed at his neatly folded hands in his lap, when he hears the door to the patient's room open. He remains silent, expecting his doctor's stern voice to chastise him about not eating his, quite frankly, shitty hospital food. Instead--

"Kaito!!"

He barely looks up in time to feel a familiar 14-year-old boy ram into him and wrap his skinny arms around his torso. He's reminded almost painfully of Haruto, except his little brother doesn't have nearly as much energy as this kid.

"Yuma," he says in quiet recognition. He returns the hug, basking in the warmth of another human being.

"Kaito, I..." Yuma pulls back but still keeps his hands on the blond. Kaito can imagine his red eyes sparkling with tears -- wait ... his eyes _are_ red, right? "I'm sorry I couldn't visit you earlier," he murmurs, his voice heavy with guilt. "I kept on trying, but..."

The Tenjo shakes his head, his bangs flopping about his forehead. Mm. He needs a haircut. "It wasn't anything personal. I had a bad fever, and my doctors didn't want any more interactions to avoid contamination."

Yuma is silent, but Kaito can feel him staring at him. "They didn't want me getting anyone sick," the patient explains, assuming he didn't understand what he had said.

"No, I get that part." Yuma draws in a breath, and from the creak of the bed springs, Kaito can tell he's leaning forward slightly. "But ... is it true? Are you really..." Yuma removes a hand from Kaito's shoulder, and he feels it next when it brushes against his eyelashes. The blond jolts his head back and nearly headbutts the bed frame behind him. "S-sorry!" the Tsukumo sputters, taking his other hand back, as well.

"It's fine," Kaito snaps a little more harshly than he intended. He brings a hand up to his face and hovers it over his eyes; he doesn't know if his eyes look any different blind, but he'd still rather not have Yuma ogling them.

The way he's so protective over himself seems to be enough of an answer for Yuma. The bed springs creak again, and Yuma isn't invading his personal space like before. "So have you had many visitors yet?" he asks, obviously trying to change the subject. Kaito still appreciates it, nonetheless.

"I've had Haruto and Dad, and Chris ... but you're the first one to visit me after my fever," he recalls. His fingers slowly trail down his face and settle in his lap once more. It's actually tiring him to keep his arm elevated like that.

"Oh, I'm not the only one." He can hear that signature Yuma Tsukumo Grin in his voice that he had missed so dearly. "He should be getting here at any second, he had to pick up some stuff."

Kaito furrows his brows in confusion. "He...?"

He hears Yuma take a breath - Kaito notices that since going blind, he's gotten _really_ good at hearing - but is interrupted by the door banging open.

"Hey, Kaito." Said teen almost stops the smile that automatically slides onto his face when he recognizes the voice. Almost. "Catch."

Kaito registers the faint sound of something whistling through the air before what feels like a bag of groceries hits him in the chest full-force. 

He's immediately knocked back against the wall, winded. He struggles to regain his breath as Yuma cries out.

"Shark!!" Yuma shrieks his name in a panic. _"He can't see!"_

"Oh." The dumbfounded expression in Ryoga's voice would have made Kaito laugh if he wasn't struggling for every inhale of oxygen. "Yeah, I forgot about the whole blind thing."

Yuma lets out a sound that's similar to a cross between a yowling cat and a man being smothered to death with a pillow. "D-don't - don't s-say th - the _word!!"_

"Yuma, I don't think he really cares," Ryoga sighs. His shoes squeak upon the linoleum floor as he comes to stand beside the patient's bed. His fingers tangle in the cords of the IV that's sustaining Kaito's life. He would yell at the purple-haired duelist, but he's still sort of asphyxiating. "Do you care, Kaito?"

Kaito coughs in response. Ryoga seems to take it as agreeing with him.

"Anyway, take a look at some of the stuff I got you," the shark offers, tugging on the cords again. "We figured the hospital food would be shitty, so I went ahead and picked some stuff up at the store."

Kaito wordlessly picks up the grocery bag and pats the contents inside of it. He picks up a box-shaped item that rattles at his touch and holds it up in the others' direction. "This looks delicious," he remarks with every bit of disinterest and nonchalance he can muster. Ryoga doesn't seem to notice.

Yuma does, however. He takes the box from Kaito's hands, laughing nervously. "How about we make this? It's, uh..." He presumably glances at the container. "Ooh, Kraft mac 'n cheese. Nice choice, Shark."

Kaito can't recall the last time he's eaten mac 'n cheese; maybe he's snuck some off of Haruto's plate in the past few years...?

Either way, it sounds really good right now, and about 100x more appetizing than anything the hospital could offer. 

"I think there's a microwave down in the cafeteria," Kaito remarks, waving a hand. "I'm sure the staff down there would let you use it if you explain it's for me."

"Sweet!" Yuma jumps off the bed, the box of noodles in his hand rattling. "I'm gonna go make this, you two play nice!" he calls over his shoulder as he runs out of the room, leaving Kaito alone with Ryoga.

Silence immediately overtakes the room. Ryoga finds a seat on a folding chair nearby and settles down, but he doesn't say anything. 

Kaito keeps waiting for him to shift in his seat, uncomfortable in the presence of a sick person in the hospital. He never does. It suddenly hits Kaito that Ryoga is, in fact, very used to being in the presence of a sick person in the hospital.

"How's Rio?" he suddenly asks. He hears the chair's rusty joints squeak; he must have caught the shark off-guard.

"...She's been good." When Ryoga doesn't add on to his rather lackluster report, Kaito raises an eyebrow at him. He can imagine the frown on the purple-haired teen's face as he continues. "I mean, it's a little rough, since we're all getting back into school."

"Heh," Kaito chuckles. "That sucks to be all of you."

"Yeah, it does," the other grumbles in response. "At least Vector isn't going to school. I don't want to deal with him any more than I have to."

"So the rest of the Barians have started attending?"

There's a brief silence before Ryoga hurriedly responds, "Yeah." Kaito has to hide a smile when he realizes Ryoga was filling the quiet with his nod, only to realize that he couldn't see it.

"You nodded, didn't you?" Kaito remarks, his voice with an edge of something that almost sounds like teasing.

"Shut up, it's gonna be weird getting used to this," Ryoga gives him a half-hearted snarl.

"Tell me about it." The apathy returns to the blond's voice. He hears the shark utter a tiny "oh" when he realizes how insensitive he had sounded.

There's another silence, but not an uncomfortable one. Ryoga seems to be pondering something. Then:

"But Kaito ... sorry if this sounds heartless or whatever, but..." Ryoga hesitates, thinking over his next words carefully. "How are you going to duel if you can't see?"

Instead of having a snarky remark in return, Kaito is struck speechless. He hadn't even thought about that.

Immediately, he longs for the feeling of his deck in his hand, worn and shaped to his fingers like an old glove.

But where even is his deck? The last time he dueled was ... as ridiculous as it sounds, on the moon with Mizael. How did his body even get back here? And did his cards make it back, as well?

He suddenly gets a painful desire to see Chris again -- er, not see, talk to him. He mentioned something about how the Numeron Code had worked, so he would know...

Kaito wants answers, but instead, he's stuck in his hospital bed, blind and completely defenseless.

He must be silent for some time, since Ryoga shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the joints squeaking underneath him. He hears the teen draw in a breath, only to be cut off by the door opening once again.

"I cooked!" Yuma's voice fills the tiny, stuffy hospital room. "And it's really good! Promise!" Kaito hears his sneakers screech across the tile toward his bed.

Yuma gently takes hold of his wrists and places them with palms facing the ceiling so that he can receive the plastic bowl of mac 'n cheese. The smell, unfortunately, leaves Kaito feeling nauseous. 

He sits there, silent, letting the bowl warm his dry hands. He can almost see Yuma drooping beside his bed as he doesn't make any moves to eat the dinner the young teen has so delicately prepared.

Finally, Kaito unhappily pushes the meal away. "I'm sorry, Yuma. I'm not hungry."

He thinks he imagines the quiet, disappointed sigh that comes from the boy. But then he's back to his normal, cheerful self. "Oh, that's okay, Kaito! We'll cover it up and leave it by your bed for later." Thankfully, the nauseating bowl is removed from his hands. Kaito slithers down into his blankets, trying to fight down the queasiness in his stomach. He turns his back on the two teens and curls up under the sheets.

"Would you two be able to go now?" he asks, his voice barely above a murmur with the sheets muffling his mouth. "I just kinda want to be alone right now. Sorry."

He hears Ryoga scowl behind him. "Wow, and after we went out of our way for you--" He's cut off by a smack and by his own yelp of pain. Yuma presumably hit him. Thanks, Yuma.

"Sure thing, Kaito," Yuma reassures him, his smile back in his voice. "We'll be back tomorrow. Is that okay?"

"Yeah." The blond can't really hear his own voice anymore. "That's perfect."

He's drifting off by the time Yuma elbows Ryoga in the gut and gets him onto his feet. He hears the faint crinkle of the grocery bag as Yuma puts it underneath his bed for safe keeping. The hospital staff will probably get to it later and throw it out, but Kaito appreciates the effort, anyway.

By the time his friends are out the door, Kaito is fast asleep.

○○○ 

A week later, as promised, the doctor has him cleared for his release from the hospital. 

It feels weird walking on his own two feet. Kaito's legs shake as he grips Haruto's bony shoulder for support. He's amazed that his brother doesn't buckle under his weight; but then again, Kaito's lost a lot of muscle in the few months he's been incapacitated.

They awkwardly shuffle out to Faker's chauffeur. The older brother trusts his younger to be his eyes, and Haruto soon delivers them safely to their ride.

Kaito can't resist letting out a sigh of relief as he sinks into the back seat, shutting his eyes to the world. Haruto snuggles close beside him, but Kaito forces enough room between them so he can buckle the boy's seatbelt for him. Haruto's small laugh from under his arm warms his older brother's heart.

He must fall asleep during the car ride home, since next thing Kaito knows, they're parked, and their door is being opened.

"Kaito." He hears his father's voice as he steps out of the vehicle. Faker embraces his son for a brief moment, and the teen cherishes the few seconds that he doesn't have to support himself standing up. "Welcome home."

"Thanks, Dad," he mumbles into his father's coat. The word tastes metallic in his mouth; he still hasn't gotten used to it yet. He pulls away, but Faker's hands remain on his shoulders: a much-needed support.

"Do you need anything, Kaito?" Faker's voice is directed straight at him. It's so loud it almost makes him a little dizzy. "Anything we can do to make you more comfortable?" _Please, stop talking._

"I want to see my lab." Without really thinking first, the words spill out of his mouth. As he thinks over them, Kaito quickly realizes that, yes, he wants to return to the room that speaks of home more than any other place, except for their childhood cottage. His lab makes for a nice replacement, though.

"...Of course," Faker complies, beginning to steer Kaito gently in the direction of his old haunt. "But I do want you to know, Kaito." His voice suddenly drops down low, and there's an almost frighteningly serious tone to it. "When you ... were recovered, I'm afraid we were unable to completely repair Orbital 7. He's still there, broken, in your lab."

Kaito's glad his father was supporting him when he said those words, because if not, he surely would have collapsed in shock.

The thought of Orbital not surviving hadn't even crossed his mind, as foolish as it sounds.

That robot was always there for him, no matter how many times he abused him or how much he asked of the hunk of metal...

And now he's gone.

He's faintly aware of Faker telling him that he has a visitor later; if it's for himself or his father, he can't really tell. His mind feels too numb to process much of anything right now.

When they reach the doors to his lab, Kaito shrugs off his father's hands. He'd much rather do this alone.

Waving a sweaty palm in front of the automatic door, he leaves his father behind and enters unattended.

He steps inside his lab and shuts the door behind him. He leans against it, focusing on regaining his breath after the arduous task of walking all this way. He slowly allows the familiar sounds of his laboratory to fill his ears. It's much quieter than usual, but there's still the consistent, steady hum of the supercomputer that had accompanied him on so many all-nighters here that it almost feels like an old friend.

On shaky legs, Kaito manages to make his way a few feet forward and grip onto the railing. It feels slick in his clammy hands.

Even so, he holds onto it like a life-line as he ventures deeper into his lab. His uneven footsteps on the tile echo around the spacious room.

Finally, after what seems like ages, he reaches the central control module. The echoes falter, and he steadies himself upon the outward structure of the computer. He allows his fingers to trail up the module, and at his touch, the machine hums to life. He can practically feel the keys vibrating at his fingertips.

Kaito smiles and traces paths along the keys that his fingers may have taken during a particularly slow and boring day of research. He gradually begins to circumambulate the massive device, allowing the keyboard to guide his way.

He closes his eyes and loses himself in the consistent purr of his computer and the reverberation of his boots upon tile around his laboratory.

He could almost believe things are back to normal. As long as he doesn't open his eyes, he can't tell how anything's different.

Suddenly, he runs into something in his path.

Reflexively, Kaito opens his eyes, only to see that, surprise, there's just darkness. He halts his journey and freezes up. One hand finds the module for support and the other slowly reaches forward to connect with the obstruction once more.

His hand meets cold scrap metal.

Kaito hesitates. Why would anyone leave junk in his lab for him to trip over? He can't exactly see it, and this definitely wasn't here before.

He allows his hand to travel across the metal's surface. It feels beat-up, with scratches and dents covering what feels like every square inch of it. It's also not very big; it can't be more than three feet tall.

 His other hand joins in the investigation, and he finally studies the top of the scrap -- and suddenly, it's incredibly clear.

From the protrusions on either side of the metal, the large slabs of fractured glass attached to the back, and the two small optics on its front, Kaito realizes with subdued horror that the hunk of scrap metal in his hands is Orbital 7.

At the shocking realization, he sinks to his knees. He rubs a thumb over Orbital's optics - and nearly gets cut, thanks to the fractured glass within them - and says in a voice that sounds unlike his own, "Orbital?"

The robot does not respond. Kaito doesn't even feel his core heat up with the power of his Baria Crystal at the sound of his voice; instead, Orbital remains cold and impassive. 

"Orbital 7," the blond teen starts, his voice sounding weak as he continuously runs his thumbs over the robot's eyes. "I order you to boot up."

It's a command that the useless robot would have heard even if he was in sleep mode, and he wouldn't dare disobey his master.

Orbital does not move.

Kaito chokes on the breath he does not realize he had been holding. So Faker was right. Orbital is broken and, by all means, irreparable, because the only one who knows how to fix him can't even see what he's doing.

The Tenjo staggers to his feet and almost falls onto the module; in an effort to secure his grip, his hand lashes out to find something, anything to hold on to.

His hand finds his deck.

Once again, Kaito freezes up. Slowly, deliberately, he grips the cards in his hands and brings them close to his face, as if he will be able to see them if he just brings them close enough. He fans his beloved deck out in one hand and gently draws his fingers across them, letting the cards flick against one another.

_Is this one Galaxy-Eyes?_ he wonders as he traces the border of a card. _Or was it the last one? Maybe this one is Daybreaker?_ He rubs his thumb across the worn edges of a card toward the top of the deck. He can feel the folds and creases running across its surface; they're sure signs of excessive use. _This one_ has _to be Galaxy-Eyes._

Kaito holds maybe-Galaxy-Eyes in his hands, still slumped over the module, too afraid to forfeit his stance in case he slips and ends up falling down again. 

He ponders over the cards in his hands. They're most certainly his; there isn't another deck in the world that has quite the indents, quite the creases, quite the grooves that his cards have.

And yet he can't even tell his ace monster from a regular effect monster.

In a sudden fit of rage, Kaito throws his precious, well-worn deck at the ground with a strangled cry of anguish.

He hears the cards skitter across the floor, accompanied by the echoes of his scream around the lab. His scattered deck quickly settles, but Kaito is not satisfied.

With another yell, Kaito catches some of Orbital's loose parts and pitches them at the tile. The resounding crash that occurs is immensely satisfying, and he gives the junk a kick to send it dancing across the floor. He ignores the pain in his toes and sends more scrap metal flying at the ground with another impassioned throw. 

Then he finds another piece of junk to heave at the floor of his laboratory.

Then another.

And another.

He doesn't know how much he chucks at the ground, or how damaged it gets, or what he's even throwing at this point, or if he even cares.

All he knows is the sudden, blistering pain that rushes through his body when the flat of his palm suddenly catches itself on the razor-sharp edge of Orbital's fractured glass wing.

Quite like before, Kaito lets out another scream. But this time, it's one of agony, not of rage.

He collapses to the ground, clutching his injured hand. Cards and small pieces of scrap go flying when he hits the floor.

Immediately, he feels a terrible, sickly warm liquid flood his hands. His struck hand goes numb; Kaito becomes terrified he's sliced through a vital nerve.

He hugs his hand to his chest, knowing full-well that he's allowing blood to soak through his t-shirt. He tries to use the shirt as a bandage to staunch the blood flow, but when he brings the wound in contact with the fabric, it stings like fury.

Kaito doubles over, panting in exhaustion. He can't tell if his skin is slick from sweat or blood; maybe it's both. He wants to cry out for help, but if no one heard him screaming bloody murder when he had thrown all his valuables at the floor mere moments before, then no one would hear him calling for aid.

The sizable laceration on his palm won't stop gushing blood; Kaito's beginning to ponder the satire of his situation if he dies of blood loss only a month after he was resurrected. How horribly ironic.

Too weak to move, Kaito is content to sit there, keeled over, with his injured hand sandwiched between his legs and his torso - consequently soaking both with his blood - in a vain attempt to stem the rush of his life force. To no one's surprise, it doesn't really work.

Oh well. This was kind of his fault anyway, for having a temper tantrum and throwing things. Maybe this is Orbital's way of keeping his master in check, even from beyond the grave.

He's starting to feel faint. Yeah. Orbital 7 has a pretty fucked-up sense of humor.

Suddenly, he hears the automatic doors to his lab slide open; normally, they're a quiet hum, but now, they sound even louder than his screams from a few minutes before.

But they don't even come close to the volume of the cry that fills his ears and echoes around his head and hurts his brain almost as much as the gash on his hand hurts him.

_"Kaito?!"_

Said teen doesn't respond; whether he doesn't want to or he can't, he can't really tell.

The source of the oddly familiar voice comes running toward him with footsteps that reverberate through the ground and make his body vibrate.

Suddenly, hands are touching him, embracing his shoulders and forcing his torso upright, consequently exposing his gushing hand to the merciless bite of the air. Kaito lets out a hiss of pain, but it isn't loud enough to mask the gasp of horror from his intruder.

"Kaito, oh my god..." He can feel the stranger hesitate as he takes in the gory mess of his chest, legs, and hands. That voice is _so achingly_ familiar, and yet he can't quite recall...

The stranger takes his hands off of Kaito's shoulders, and the Tenjo faintly registers the sound of ripping fabric. Moments later, he feels a horrific sting of agony as his rescuer (?) wraps his bleeding hand in the previously torn fabric. He tries to pull his hand away from the excess of pain, but the stranger holds onto his blood-soaked arm with an iron grip. Kaito is too weak to fight against him.

The stranger ties off the bandage, and his now blood-saturated hands take Kaito by the shoulders and shake him awake. "Don't faint on me now, Kaito," the voice says, intense and, at the same time, aloof.

The Tenjo wonders if his eyes are even open; everything is too foggy to tell anymore. He doesn't know if he's on the verge of dying or if he's wide awake.

Apparently, he's not quite dead yet, because he manages a single word: "Who..."

The stranger must take his trailing off as a sign of slipping into unconsciousness, since Kaito is rewarded with another vigorous shake. "Kaito, it's Mizael," the urgent voice finally names itself. "We need to get you to a proper doctor; can you walk?"

Kaito gives him a discontented, indiscernible mumble in response.

_"Don Thousand,"_ Mizael mutters, his tone dark. He probably just swore, but Kaito is too far gone to care. "You're useless," he dismisses him with an angered, yet still concerned, remark.

Keeping one hand steady on his slick arm, Mizael loops another arm around Kaito's back and slowly begins to stand. The Tenjo lets out a weak, strangled yelp from the effort, but the other blond does not give in. He stands up straight, easily supporting the weakened teen who has hardly left his hospital bed for the past month.

If Kaito had been more conscious, he would probably be impressed by Mizael's strength and muscles, and also perhaps a little embarrassed by his incompetent state.

With a grunt, the Barian slowly sets them on course for the automatic sliding door Mizael had entered through only a few minutes earlier. The journey seems to last years, with Kaito constantly slipping and stumbling over the junk he had thrown upon the ground. About halfway through, Mizael is practically carrying him to the door.

After what feels like ages, they come in close enough proximity to the entrance for the doors to slide open at their presence; immediately, Mizael yells for help. His voice is painfully loud in Kaito's sensitive ears.

Thankfully, the Barian only had to call once for someone to hear. Someone - Kaito thinks it may be his father, but he's too far gone now to really distinguish voices from one another - spots them with a choked-back cry and quickly rushes in to assist them.

As Kaito's weak and painfully light body is passed from Mizael to maybe-Faker, the blind teen passes out.


	2. Kaito Tenjo Gets Trolled by Siri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having a phone is kinda useless if you can't see it, right? Kaito sets out to fix that.

Kaito is rather unhappy to learn that only a few hours after leaving the hospital, he's back.

Who knows, maybe he's back in the same bed that he left the warmth of just a few hours ago.

Either way, he's pissed. Mostly at himself.

Kaito sits upright in bed, cradling his heavily bandaged right hand close to his chest. He must have been given painkillers, since the wound isn't giving him any more grief. Plus, they had stitched it up and wrapped it in what felt like five pounds of gauze, the doctors saying that it was a miracle he didn't sever a tendon and consequently lose all movement in his fingers.

He can't move it anyway with all the bandages restricting its movements, so why was it such a miracle?

The reluctant patient leans back against the wall, his patience thinning more and more quickly by the minute. He tries to content himself with glaring at his hand, blaming his appendage for all his troubles. He's afraid that it doesn't work, not only because he cannot even see his hand, but also because he knows _he's_ the one at fault here.

He lets out an exasperated groan and hits the back of his head against the wall a few times. Now that he's back in the hospital, there's no way they're ever gonna let him out ever again. He may as well start getting used to this life now.

Suddenly, the door opens.

Reflexively, Kaito looks up in the direction of the sound. He's sure he almost looks like a normal, seeing patient.

"Kaito," an irritated, condescending voice touches his ears. It most definitely isn't his doctor. "Just what the hell were you thinking?" Nope, it's Mizael.

His time spent moping in bed and lamenting his situation has given Kaito ample time to recall - with embarrassment - everything that had happened before he had passed out a few hours ago. Specifically, he remembers Mizael saving his life.

Mm. A life debt isn't a good thing to have a month after you've been brought back to life in the first place.

Despite this, Kaito gives him a "Tch" reminiscent of the way the bad boys say it in those anime that Haruto loves. "It's none of your business."

He hears Mizael scowl and come stomping toward his cot; suddenly Kaito's being half-lifted out of the bed by his collar, and he feels the Barian's fist skim his throat. The Tenjo chokes as the back of his shirt bites into his neck.

"It is very much my business," Mizael hisses. Kaito can feel his breath on his face; the Barian is standing incredibly close to him. The patient tries to crane his head away, but Mizael has too tight of a grip on him; he can't move. "You might have died if I wasn't there."

Kaito longs to give him a snarky remark, but he _is_ kind of choking. He opts for the more straight-forward route. "Why did you even go to my house?" he manages, his voice low from strain.

Mizael doesn't say anything, but Kaito hears him let out a long sigh. The pressure at his throat releases a little. "To apologize," he finally admits stiffly.

The Barian then releases him and throws him back onto his bed; his head smacks against the bedframe and leaves him with a resounding headache that pounds to a dull beat. He groans and tries to sit up, but it leaves him dizzy and horribly nauseous. He also tries to prop himself up with his injured hand, which, surprise, does not work in the slightest.

He can practically feel the disdain rolling off the Barian as Kaito struggles to find a suitable position in his bed. He's amazed Mizael hasn't left already when he finally finds the strength to mumble, "Apologize for what?"

Again, Mizael remains silent for several moments, likely thinking over his words. "For the moon," he finally answers, his tone simple. "And what happened there."

Kaito's throat lets out a tiny "Oh" of its own accord. He blinks his sightless eyes at the Barian. He wasn't expecting this.

The two teenagers remain silent, as if waiting for the other to speak. Then: "Well? Aren't you going to say it?" Kaito points out, a little annoyed that this is so difficult for the Barian.

He can imagine Mizael's blue eyes narrowing at him, testing him. His lips are probably thinly drawn, refusing to open and utter even a word of remorse. Stubborn alien.

He hears his boots click on the tile as he turns on his heel and leaves the hospital room. Kaito thinks he's just going to straight-up leave, but he pauses at the doorframe.

"I'm glad you're back," Mizael finally confesses, his voice so low Kaito has to strain his ears to hear. Then his boots click upon the hospital floor once again, and he's gone.

Kaito doesn't move. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but thanks," he calls after the alien. If Mizael hears him, he doesn't acknowledge it.

○○○

Luckily, Kaito's stay in the hospital this time around is considerably shorter than his first visit. His cut, while it definitely isn't minor, was not enough to hospitalize him for as long as his severe fever had.

Much like his first stay, Faker is there to escort him back home. Haruto, however, is noticeably absent.

But as soon as he steps over the threshold of his house (with Faker's help), his little brother greets him with a tearful hug.

"You left me again without warning," he mumbles into Kaito's t-shirt, his words muffled. "I was so worried."

A horrible pang of guilt swells in the older brother's gut, hurting him both mentally and physically. He returns the hug with his good hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you through that again."

What a shitty older brother he is, leaving his little brother alone as soon as things are supposed to go back to normal. Haruto deserves better than him.

The boy suddenly pulls out of the hug and takes Kaito's good hand in one of his; he squeezes it tightly so he won't let go. "I'm afraid to leave you alone again," Haruto admits. His wide golden eyes are probably staring at the bandaged mess of Kaito's right hand. "Can we just ... hang out for a bit?"

Warmed by his brother's concern, he smiles down at him and gives his tiny hand a quick squeeze of reassurance in return. "Of course." The two begin to walk down the hall. Kaito trusts the boy to be his eyes, much like how he trusted him when he left the hospital for the first time. "What do you want to do? You want to catch me up on that favorite show of yours?"

He can feel Haruto hesitate through his grip. "I dunno, Nii-san ... You've missed a lot."

Kaito snorts. "Oh, come on, it can't be that bad. Have they beaten the Dark Signers yet?"

"Nii-san ... That was three seasons ago."

The older brother is thrown off-guard. "O-oh." He stumbles to a halt, but with Haruto's gentle encouragement, he gets started again. "Heh I ... guess I missed a lot more than I realized, huh?"

"Mm-hm." Haruto's tone is painfully worried; Kaito hates it. He shouldn't have to worry about his brother. That's _Kaito's_ job.

"Well, we can still make an effort," the older brother points out. "I think I was on episode ... uh..." He trails off. _God,_ has it really been that long since he's taken the time to sit down and watch cartoons with his little brother?

Well, yes, a lot of the reasons _why_ he hasn't been there for Haruto have been out of his control, but he still feels guilty as all hell for it. From the squeeze of his little brother's hand on his, he can tell Haruto understands.

"How about we just start from the beginning?" the blue-haired boy proposes. "It's been a while since I've seen it, anyway."

Ah. Haruto always knows what to say. "That sounds great," Kaito approves with a smile.

They make their way into Haruto's room. Although he can't see his surroundings, Kaito already feels more at home. This room has a warm, cozy atmosphere, unlike the wide, unfeeling observation deck that served as Haruto's territory at Heartland Tower. It was truly a cold and unforgiving place.

But this place is different. For one, it actually has furniture.

Kaito settles down on a couch as Haruto sets up the television set. The cushions he sinks into feel like he's laying on angel's wings after the stiff, uncomfortable slab he was supposed to sleep on in the hospital.

It doesn't take long for his brother to get the first episode started. Haruto quickly joins him on the couch and snuggles up next to him; at some point while he was still standing, the boy must have grabbed a blanket, since now they're both covered in the cozy fleece. Kaito tucks an arm around his little brother's shoulders and listens to the show.

To his own surprise, Kaito finds himself humming along to the theme song. As Haruto joins in, memories of the two of them, curled up on the couch in their cottage, come flooding back to him. They would do exactly what they're doing right now; except, of course, Kaito could actually see the T.V. back then.

But that doesn't matter.

All that matters right now is spending time with his little brother, letting the afternoon drift lazily by as they catch up on the show that's been too long since they've watched together.

○○○

Kaito doesn't mean to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, around the start of episode seven, his mind starts to feel sluggish, and he's out like a light by the time the eyecatch rolls around. Luckily, Haruto doesn't seem to mind.

When Kaito wakes up, it's dark out.

On second thought, he realizes that's a dumb observation. It's always dark for him.

Anyway, he's currently sprawled across the length of the couch, the blanket only half on his body anymore. While he was asleep, Haruto must have turned off the television set and proceeded to his own bed, since Kaito is alone on the couch in the suddenly silent room.

When he realizes this fact, he sits up with a jolt.

The blanket is completely thrown off at this action; he sits there in his t-shirt and jeans, blinking at his surroundings. There's a slight chill to the room; this leads him to believe it's the middle of the night.

When Kaito pauses, he can just barely hear his brother's quiet breathing a few feet to his right. It's steady and calming. If he had to guess, he'd assume Haruto's asleep. This comforts him a little; the boy didn't have to see his brother suddenly sit up in bed as if he was just possessed.

But it most definitely must be the middle of the night by now. That wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that Kaito is wide awake and very, very hungry.

Hm. Bad timing.

The Tenjo sits there, pondering his situation. As far as he can tell, he has two options:

A) Try to go back to sleep and wait for Haruto to wake up, trying not to starve in the meantime,

or

B) Risk his life and try to make his way down to the kitchen on his own.

Every shred of common sense the teen has in his body is screaming at him to take option A and to lay back down and re-cover himself with that blanket he had so foolishly knocked off of himself. Instead, Kaito gets up. His feet hit the plush carpet, and he takes a moment to ground himself before standing. He sways, but he remains upright.

His fingertips find the cushions of the couch, and he uses them as a guide until he reaches the sanctuary of Haruto's bedroom wall. He spreads his palms out across it, trying to take in as much of the wall as possible. It's still largely bare; Haruto hasn't had very long to cover it with posters like other boys his age do.

Keeping his palms on the wallpaper, Kaito follows it to the door. Luckily, it's still open, so he doesn't have to go fumbling around for the doorknob.

He creeps out into the hallway, his socks quiet on the carpet. His fingertips trail the wall and trace a path he's not sure he'll be able to follow again.

Although he's been ... missing in action for a few months, Kaito quickly finds his journey to the kitchen to be a familiar one. His feet fall into familiar steps down the hallway and onto the tile in the dining room.

He's forced to slow his pace as he traverses through the treacherous land filled with dining chairs. However, once he's freed himself, it's an easy path to the cupboard and the refrigerator.

Not looking for a particularly fancy meal, Kaito grabs the first cereal box he finds and pours himself a bowl of what he assumes are Frosted Flakes. He's lazy and leaves the milk carton on the counter as he sits down and tucks into his midnight snack/breakfast.

It tastes a little off - maybe the cereal's gone stale - but he's honestly too hungry to care. Plus, even stale cereal tastes about 500x more appetizing than any hospital food he's ever had. It feels like he's having a five-star meal in his dark kitchen at God-knows-what-o' clock.

As he's pouring his second bowl of cereal, Kaito suddenly hears the flick of a light switch and the squeak of a dining room chair in the room next door. Instinctively, he turns around on his stool. "Hello?" he asks, his voice much too loud in the quiet kitchen.

"Nii-san." Oh, it's Haruto. "What are you doing?"

Kaito blinks. He hears his little brother walk closer until he's standing next to him. Even when the blond brother is sitting on a stool, he's much taller than the boy. The duelist picks up the box of cereal he was holding and shakes it. "Eating cereal," he explains. "This is the first non-hospital meal I've had in literal months."

"Yeah, I know." Haruto leans on the counter, his face pointed back at his brother. "But is this really the time to eat it?"

Kaito shrugs and eats a spoonful of Frosted Flakes. "I dunno, I can't read the clock anymore. What time is it?"

The boy lets out a small, almost invisible sigh before replying, "It's 3:18 a.m."

The older brother almost chokes on his spoon. "O-oh." That may have been the earliest he's ever woken up on his own. "Wait, then why are you up and about?"

He hears the sheepishness in Haruto's voice. "I woke up and saw you were gone and I -- kinda freaked out. It's just a little worrying for your blind brother to disappear, you know?"

Kaito feels shame warm his cheeks, which he tries to quell with another spoonful of cereal. "Yeah, I guess I didn't think this through. Sorry, Haruto."

"It's fine," his little brother dismisses him with a smile in his voice. "You just do what you have to--" Suddenly, he cuts himself off. Kaito startles in alarm, and his bandaged hand shoots out to grab Haruto's shoulder, to make sure he's okay.

When the boy speaks again, his tone is confused and mildly concerned-sounding. "Nii-san, you're drinking skim milk." He must have seen the carton Kaito had so carelessly left on the counter. "You _hate_ skim milk."

"I ... do?" Kaito has to think for a moment. "Oh yeah, I do. That would explain why the cereal tastes a little off."

He can feel Haruto staring at him, probably in exasperation. "How can you just forget that you hate something?"

Despite his apparent hatred for the liquid, Kaito finishes off his second bowl. He finally lets go of his brother's shoulder and shrugs. "Maybe my taste buds got scrambled when I was dead. It could be worse."

At the small, sharp inhale of breath from Haruto, Kaito realizes that his little brother is tensing up. He probably hates being reminded of his older brother's death.

Immediately, guilt floods his gut, making him nauseous and incredibly adverse to having another bowl. For once, he's glad he can't see the food in front of him; it would make him sick to his already-full stomach.

He pushes himself away from the counter on the stool and gets up to stand next to Haruto, with a little bit of difficulty. His little brother's hands shoot out to support him as he sways on his feet.

"I'm not hungry anymore,"  the older brother mumbles. "Maybe I _do_ hate skim milk."

Haruto gives him a small pat on the back before briefly leaving him to put away all the stuff Kaito had left out like an ungrateful guest.

When he returns to his side, Haruto takes Kaito's uninjured hand in his. "Do you want to head back to my room?" the boy asks, his voice small in the heavy silence of the kitchen.

The two slowly begin to weave their way out of the room and into the hallway. "Sure, but I'm not tired," Kaito sighs, feeling more and more like a selfish, unwelcome visitor in his own house with every passing second.

Haruto gives his hand a quick squeeze. "You wanna watch more of the show together?"

The blond casts a scowl down at the blue-haired boy. "Don't let me keep you up. You need to sleep."

"But I'm not tired," Haruto echoes his older brother. Kaito can imagine the mischievous smirk on the boy's face. "I can stay up and watch a couple more episodes."

"Ugh, fine," the older brother reluctantly agrees with a groan. "But don't blame me if you're too tired to make it through the day after spending half the night watching television."

Haruto simply giggles and continues leading him down the hallway, back to the sanctuary of his own bedroom.

  ○○○

According to Haruto, it's around 7:46 a.m. when their father knocks on the door. They're on episode fifteen, and the opening has just ended when Faker steps into the room.

Kaito feels his brother shift from underneath his arm to look up at their father. "Morning, Dad!" Haruto cheerily greets him. Kaito's sightless eyes dart to his left, where the sound of the door creaking open came from, but he says nothing.

"Good morning, boys." The surprise in Faker's voice is unmistakable. "I didn't expect you to be up at this hour, watching..." He presumably glances at the television. "...card games."

"Oh, we've been watching since about 3:30," Haruto says nonchalantly, his grin clear as day in his voice. "Neither of us could sleep."

"Glad to know I'm not alone, then," comes the heavy sigh from their father. "Kaito, I'd forgotten I'd put your phone in my room for safe keeping while you were ... away." The teen perks up in curiosity at the mention of his name, and of his phone. "But around 6 a.m., it started ringing incessantly, and it still hasn't stopped..." As if to prove his point, Kaito hears his phone buzz in Faker's hands.

The doctor crosses the room and grants the teen his still-vibrating smartphone. The blond blinks at the device in his uninjured hand, wondering what could possibly be giving him so many notifications.

"Now that that's settled," Faker exhales, "I'm going to work now." His muffled footsteps grow softer as he walks away on the carpet. "Be good, you two. Haruto, keep an eye on him," he advises, his voice coming from within the door frame.

"Yes sir!" At the boy's concession, Faker closes the door behind him and leaves the Tenjo boys in Haruto's room, with only the drone of the television and the buzz of Kaito's miraculously still-alive phone to keep them company.

"Haruto, since I can't check," Kaito finally speaks, "Can you take a look at my phone and tell me why it's vibrating so much?"

"Sure." His little brother retrieves his phone from his hand and re-positions himself so he can observe it more comfortably. "Turns out you have ... 126 unread messages."

Had Kaito still been eating his gross skim milk-flooded cereal, he surely would have choked. _"126 messages?!"_ He's pretty sure he's _never_ been this popular before.

"Well..." Haruto draws out the word as he checks something on his brother's phone; Kaito doesn't need to worry about telling his brother how to get into it, since he never keeps it locked, anyway. "They date back to December, way before you were gone."

Oh. That would explain it. It's currently the end of March.

Kaito shifts in his seat, tucks his legs underneath him to get more comfortable. The television has been paused and his phone isn't buzzing for once; the brief lull in the noise is very much appreciated. "Would you mind reading out the texts from the beginning?" he asks in a quiet voice.

Haruto pauses for a moment; his brother assumes he's scrolling down to the oldest unread message. The boy takes a heavy breath and hesitates. When he speaks again, his voice is small and unsure; what did he see in the text messages that made him so tentative...? "Are you ready, Nii-san? There's a lot."

Kaito nods before he can think about what he's doing. "Hit me with it."

Haruto breathes in deeply and opens the oldest message.

_[12/22/13]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [21:49] hey kaito?? where are you? we haven't seen you since you sped off w orbital earlier today_

_Yuma: [21:50] i'm getting really worried_

_Yuma: [21:50] pls text back soon okay_

Haruto takes a shaky breath. His older brother frowns at him, pitying that he has to read this when it should only be for his own sightless eyes.

"Haruto, if you want to stop--" Kaito begins to offer.

"No, it's fine, I'll finish," his younger brother insists, turning his attention back to the smartphone in his tiny hands.

3 texts down, 123 more to go.

Wait, his phone just buzzed again.

Make that 124.

_[12/23/13]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [00:13] kaito... chris just told me where you are_

_Yuma: [00:14] are u okay up there?_

_Yuma: [00:14] there's a pause in all the fighting, astral is working on getting the airship running rn_

_Yuma: [00:15] i'm looking up at the moon to pass the time and thinking about how weird it is that ur up there_

_Yuma: [00:16] like. i'm about to wave_

_Yuma: [00:16] there i just waved. did u see?_

_Yuma: [00:17] o astral just looked at me. but it wasn't his normal "what the heck is wrong with u" kind of look, he looked really worried_

_Yuma: [00:18] huh. i just realized u probably don't have wifi up in space. r u even getting these?_

_Yuma: [00:19] ...maybe u r getting these but ur too busy dueling to respond. that's ok, i get that_

_Yuma: [00:20] good luck kaito, i believe in u, win that duel_

_Yuma: [00:20] see u soon_

○○○  

_[12/30/13]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_  

_Yuma: [14:17] ...hi kaito. it's been a while._

_Yuma: [14:17] we beat don thousand and saved everyone, y'know? a lot of people came back: the arclights, fuya, tetsuo... i'm really happy to see them all again_

_Yuma: [14:18] but. u still haven't come back._

_Yuma: [14:18] y not? everyone else is back. other than the barians but astral thinks he can bring them back_

_Yuma: [14:19] when r u coming back_

_Yuma: [14:20] please, kaito. i miss you._

○○○  

_[01/01/14]_

_[Conversation with: Christopher Arclight]_

_Chris: [00:01] Happy New Year's, Kaito._

_Chris: [00:02] I know you can't read these from wherever you are, but I just want to let you know that we /will/ bring you back. I won't rest until you've returned._

_Chris: [00:03] Just hang in there until then. See you soon, Kaito._

○○○  

_[01/04/14]_

_[Conversation with: Dad]_

_Faker: [15:34] Hello?_

_[15:36] [Missed call from: Dad]_

_Faker: [15:37] Ah, sorry about that, Kaito. I wanted to find your phone but I had to call it to find it in the pits of your room. I found it, though._

_Faker: [15:38] I'll put it on the charger utnil you return. Hope you won't mind._

_Faker: [15:38] *until_

_Faker: [15:39] Please come back soon, son._

○○○

_[01/09/14]_

_[Conversation with: it's Shark, not Ryoga]_

_Ryoga: [20:11] uh so. hey._

_Ryoga: [20:11] i lived bitch_

_Ryoga: [20:12] [image sent]_

_Ryoga: [20:13] wait i just realized you probably won't see that for like. a while_

_Ryoga: [20:13] well it's still funny so text me when you get it okay_

_Ryoga: [20:15] anywayyyy we're all back now. all the barians were brought back to life with the power of the numeron code. that's pretty cool_

_Ryoga: [20:16] i mean, everyone's back except for you._

_Ryoga: [20:16] why you gotta be such an attention whore, kaito. stop making everything about yourself. it's making yuma miserable. and i hate seeing him miserable._

_Ryoga: [20:17] it doesn't help that astral is gone now, too..._

_Ryoga: [20:19] wait, what am i saying? by the time you read all this, we'll have told you everything after you've woken up. so all this is. useless lol_

_Ryoga: [20:20] anyway you better come back soon. i know chris is working hard on bringing you back so you better listen to him okay_

_Ryoga: [20:21] if you don't come back soon then i'm gonna beat you up. when you're alive again, of course._

_Ryoga: [20:21] so. yeah._

_Ryoga: [20:22] just get back already, kaito._

○○○  

_[01/27/14]_

_[Conversation with: Number Unknown]_

_???: [12:56] Hello? I do hope that this thing w_

_???: [12:56] orks._

_???: [12:57] I ... I don't think that was supposed to happen._

_???: [12:58] Anyway, Kaito. It's Mizael. Nasch helped me get one of those human "smartphones" that your kind seems to love so dearly._

_???: [13:00] He also gave me what he called your "number". Is he a fool? I clearly do not have Number 62 in my possession. It is still with you, last time I checked._

_???: [13:02] These tiny devices confuse me. I do hope you return soon so you can show me how one is used._

_???: [13:03] I would ask Nasch or Merag, as they're both experienced with human practices, but it would be rather embarrassing on my part._

_???: [13:04] I could also ask Vector, but he is ... Vector._

_???: [13:05] So I must turn to you, my deceased friend. Hopefully, you will not be deceased for much longer._

_???: [13:06] I am quite sorry about that. I do hope you won't be cross about it when you return._

_???: [13:07] As you humans say it, see you soon, Kaito._

○○○  

_[02/06/14]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [22:07] hi kaito._

_Yuma: [22:07] i've been holding myself back from texting u, cuz i know it would only hurt me and make me sad and make u have more messages to go thru when u get back_

_Yuma: [22:08] but it's been forever since i've texted and i don't want future kaito thinking that i haven't been thinking about u bcuz. i am thinking about u._

_Yuma: [22:09] it's been almost a month since the barians got back and of course i'm happy they're all here but it's not the same w/o u_

_Yuma: [22:10] gosh i'm sorry it's late i should get to bed cuz it's a school night_

_Yuma: [22:10] sorry to bother u. i just really miss u._

_Yuma: [22:11] goodnight kaito_

○○○ 

_[02/25/14]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [10:50] hey do u want me to drop off the cards at ur house_

_Yuma: [10:50] ?_

_Yuma: [10:54] oh. wrong person lol_

_Yuma: [10:55] sorry kaito_

○○○ 

_[03/01/14]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [9:17] KATIHOIO_

_Yuma: [9:17] KATHO IIOK_

_Yuma: [9:17] MKAITIOOGF_

_Yuma: [9:18] KAITO!!!!!!!!!!_

_Yuma: [9:18] KAITO WHHKETRE ISD UR ROOJM I'NJM RUNINGFN T OH THE HOSTPJLITAL NWO_

_Yuma: [9:19] DANGIT THERE'S A STOPLIGHT_

_Yuma: [9:20] WHAT IS OUR ROOM NUMBER I GOTTA C U_

_Yuma: [9:21] KAITO_

_Yuma: [9:22] ?????_

_Yuma: [9:23] GOD THIS IS A REEAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY LONG STOPLIGHT_

_Yuma: [9:24] O AJKY_

_Yuma: [9:24] I'MN  COM ING_

_Yuma: [9:29] OKAY I'M HERE_

_Yuma: [9:30] I'LL ASK THE RECEPTIONIST WHERE U R_

_Yuma: [9:32] GOT UR ROOM NUMBER!!! C U SOON!!!! OMG_

_Yuma: [9:37] WHAT THE HECK_

_Yuma: [9:37] THEY WOULDN'T LET ME IN!! THEY SAID ONLY FAMILY MEMBERS ARE ALLOWED FOR NOW_

_Yuma: [9:38] BUT KAITO WE'RE PRACTICALLY FAMILY RIGHT?? WE'VE GONE THRU SO MUCH. WE'RE BROS_

_Yuma: [9:39] WAIT WHAT IF UR SLEEPING_

_Yuma: [9:40] OH. SORRY KAITO. I'LL TRY TO COME BACK TOMORROW OKAY?? DON'T GO ANYWHERE_

○○○ 

_[03/02/14]_

_[Conversation with: Christopher Arclight]_

_Chris: [8:49] Kaito, I'm so glad you're back._

_Chris: [8:50] I'm dropping by a little later today, hopefully you'll be awake. See you then._

○○○ 

_[03/22/14]_

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [15:05] well that only took FOREVER_

_Yuma: [15:05] they FINALLY cleared u for visitors like SHEESH THAT ONLY TOOK LIKE 5 YEARS_

_Yuma: [15:06] anyway!! shark's at the store atm picking up some food. i was gonna wait for him to get back but i'm honestly so excited i think i may go c u on my own lol_

_Yuma: [15:08] ...wait i just realized. u.... can't c anymore rite?_

_Yuma: [15:08] so u can't c these messages?_

_Yuma: [15:09] oh. um._

_[15:11] [Missed call from: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [15:12] okay no that didn't work_

_Yuma: [15:13] y am i still typing i know u can't c these_

_Yuma: [15:14] unless someone is reading them out to u?_

_Yuma: [15:14] in which case hi person reading these texts out to kaito!!_

_Yuma: [15:16] well anyway i'm gonna head off now i don't feel like waiting for shark anymore lol, c u soon_

○○○

_[03/22/14]_

_[Conversation with: it's Shark, not Ryoga]_

_Ryoga: [15:20] hey random question. do you like mac n cheese_

_Ryoga: [15:27] ...hello???_

_Ryoga: [15:30] wait i just remembered you're blind now. yuma told me, who said that faker told him..._

_Ryoga: [15:31] dang, this is gonna take some getting used to._

_Ryoga: [15:33] well you better like mac n cheese because i'm getting it and you can't say no so. see you soon_

○○○ 

_[03/28/14]_

_[Conversation with: Number Unknown]_

_???: [12:32] Kaito, it's Mizael again. I'm dropping by your house later today because I heard that you're getting out of the hospital. Hope you won't mind._

○○○ 

_[03/28/14]_  

_[Conversation with: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_[17:10] [Missed call from: yuma the greatest duelist ever!!! <3 <3]_

_Yuma: [17:11] kaito??? mizael just texted me saying that ur back in the hospital??? y???_

_Yuma: [17:12] i'm going back to the hospital now, i can't believe ur back in there after a few hours..._

○○○  

After what feels like years, Haruto finally stops reading out the texts. Kaito can feel his golden eyes on him, which is weird, because everything else is numb.

He made his friends suffer _so much._

Of course, it wasn't his fault, but ... it was his death that made Yuma so miserable. He's a terrible friend.

"...Is that all?" the blond finally manages, his voice weak and cracking from emotion.

"No, there's a few from today," Haruto reports, turning his attention back to the phone in his hand.

_[03/31/14]_

_[Conversation with: it's Shark, not Ryoga]_  

_Ryoga: [6:03] hey kaito you're home from the hospital right_

_Ryoga: [6:04] you wanna hang out later at my place to celebrate_

_Ryoga: [6:04] i mean yeah i know it's super early in the morning and you can't read these anyway but_

_Ryoga: [6:05] if_

_Ryoga: [6:05] i_

_Ryoga: [6:05] send_

_Ryoga: [6:05] enough_

_Ryoga: [6:05] of_

_Ryoga: [6:06] these_

_Ryoga: [6:06] eventually_

_Ryoga: [6:06] you'll_

_Ryoga: [6:06] wake_

_Ryoga: [6:06] up_

_Ryoga: [6:08] ...so are you up yet???_

_Ryoga: [6:14] goddammit kaito_

Kaito suddenly snarls. "Haruto! Don't say that word, it's bad."

His little brother makes an incredulous sound in his throat. "But that's what Ryoga sent! I can't censor his texts!"

The blind teen groans and reaches out for his phone, his good hand grasping the air. "Then give my phone to me, I need to give him a piece of my mind."

"But there's still more texts."

"Goddammit, Ryoga."

"Nii-san!!" Haruto's startled gasp almost makes him feel bad. Almost.

"It's fine," his taller brother dismisses him with a wave of his hand. "I can say it because I'm older. Now keep reading the messages."

_Ryoga: [7:31] kaitooooooo_

_Ryoga: [7:31] how are you not awake yet??_

_Ryoga: [7:32] i totally would have pegged you for an early bird tbh. are you telling me that i'm wrong?_

_Ryoga: [7:37] ughhh look i'm getting to the point of just dropping by your house whether you want me or not. you need to get outside_

_Ryoga: [7:45] i asked the other barians about it and they've decided you can come over so. you don't have any excuse not to come_

_Ryoga: [7:47] look i'm gonna pick you up at like. noon on my motorcycle. is that okay_

_Ryoga: [7:50] who am i kidding, you can't agree to this anyway lol. well see you then_

"Now is that all?" Kaito asks wearily.

His brother responds in affirmation, "Yep."

"Thank god," the older Tenjo groans, sinking into the couch cushions. He doesn't know how long they were sitting there, reading and listening to all the messages sent to a dead teen, but he's incredibly sore now. "Would you be willing to respond to that shark for me?"

He can hear the shit-eating grin in Haruto's voice. "Gladly." Kaito can imagine him hunched over his smartphone, fingers poised, ready to type out whatever his older brother asks of him. "Speak, and I shall listen."

_Kaito: [8:28] what the heck_

"Nii-san!" Haruto exclaims in anguish. "I'm not typing that!"

"I give you full permission to write that word on this occasion only," Kaito grants, sinking lower into the couch cushions. The blanket bunches up around his neck, muffling his voice.

"You're a terrible influence," his little brother sighs, turning his attention back to the smartphone in his hands.

_Kaito: [8:29] *fuck_

"There, are you happy?" Haruto demands, poking the teen in the ribs with his sock-covered toes.

"Yes, very. Now never say that word ever again," the older Tenjo commands.

"What word, fuck?" Haruto says innocently, probably batting his eyelashes and trying not to seem like a total little shit.

_"Haruto!!!"_

_Ryoga: [8:30] omg kaito?? i didn't expect you to actually respond??_

_Ryoga: [8:31] wait a second how are you typing if you can't see_

_Kaito: [8:32] oh this is haruto haha_

_Ryoga: [8:32] haruto?? why do you have kaito's phone_

_Kaito: [8:34] i've been reading him all the texts that people sent him since the last time he's checked his phone_

_Ryoga: [8:34] which is...? when?_

_Kaito: [8:35] december._

_Ryoga: [8:35] holy shit_

_Ryoga: [8:36] wait i shouldn't say that to an 8-year-old uh_

_Kaito: [8:37] it's okay, nii-san already had me say fuck_

_Kaito: [8:37] and now he's yelling at me and saying that he didn't tell me to say that,_

_Ryoga: [8:38] haha, sure, kaito. sure_

_Ryoga: [8:40] hey so haruto if kaito hasn't killed you yet, can you ask him if he's down with coming over later? i'm driving_

_Kaito: [8:41] he said yes_

"No I didn't!" the real Kaito exclaims in exasperation, blindly grasping at Haruto in a vain effort to retrieve his smartphone. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

_Ryoga: [8:42] sweet. see you later then_

"Haruto, I cannot believe you," his older brother groans as the younger finishes reading out the shark's most recent text. "You're forcing me to go out and hang out with people against my will."

"You'll be fine," the boy dismisses him. "It'll be good for you to get out of the house, too; it's been months since you've been anywhere other than here or the hospital."

Kaito knows his sibling is right, but that doesn't make him any happier.

With another dramatic groan, the older Tenjo flips his face into the couch and settles in for a nap before he has to go out and interact with people in a few hours.

○○○

Haruto helps him put together an outfit that doesn't look like a blind person dressed himself. As his little brother is getting his clothes together, Kaito takes a hot shower. The blistering water feels like it's about to peel off his skin as he vigorously scrubs himself of imaginary grime.

It's exactly what Kaito needed.

He emerges from the bathroom, a towel around his waist, feeling remarkably refreshed. He combs through his hair for the first time in months and his hair feels heavenly in his fingers.

The outfit that Haruto's prepared for him seems to be jeans and a light fleece hoodie that may be a touch too big for him, but it's perfect for his mood right now.

It's really amazing what a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes can do for one's attitude, though.

Kaito applies a fresh bandage to his right hand - he tenses up when his fingers brush the criss-crossing of stitches that decorate his palm in a gruesome fashion - before heading through the door with Haruto at his elbow when the clock strikes 12 p.m.

Ryoga's already there, waiting at the curb beside his motorcycle. "Sup" is the verbose greeting the shark gives to the Tenjos as they approach.

The brothers address him in turn, and there's a pause as Kaito assumes that Ryoga looks him up and down. "You look much better than the last time I saw you," the Kamishiro admits to him. "Although you could use a haircut."

Kaito scoffs at him, but even as he does, he can feel his bangs brushing his eyebrows, his side bangs reaching below his cheekbones. He runs a good hand through his hair and notes that it's probably long enough to be put in a ponytail.

"Hey, Kaito." Ryoga's voice rudely tugs him out of his thoughts. "Here."

Immediately, the older Tenjo pulls his arm out of the younger's grasp and prepares himself to catch whatever the shark throws at him.

Instead, he finds himself gently receiving a giant circular object that appears to be a helmet. He blinks at it in surprise and gingerly holds it in both hands, his bandaged hand lightly skimming its smooth surface.

"It's a motorcycle helmet," Ryoga explains. "What, did you think I was gonna throw something at you again? I'm not gonna make the same mistake twice, jeez."

The blond narrows his sightless eyes at him as he speaks, but he puts the helmet on anyway. It's snug and almost feels like it could be too tight, but it's just outside that range of discomfort.

"Oh good, it fits," the shark sighs in relief. "That's usually Rio's helmet, so I was worried it might be too tight, but it looks like you have just as small of a head as she does."

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" Kaito scowls, uncomfortably adjusting the helmet on his head. He probably looks like a fool with the giant thing on his face, especially with the visor covering his eyes. Does he even need a visor when he can't see?

He can imagine the shark shrugging in response. "You tell me. Just get on the bike already." Kaito then realizes that Ryoga's probably been waiting for him to get on his motorcycle this whole time.

Haruto leads him over to the vehicle, but the older brother hesitates. Where is he even supposed to sit? Ryoga really did not think this plan through.

As if he could hear his thoughts, his driver sighs and leans forward, taking up Kaito's good hand in his. "Lift your right leg up and swing it over the seat," he commands. "I'll help you over."

Kaito shoots another dark glare his way, which he probably can't even see with the visor covering his blind eyes. But he follows his instructions nonetheless and heaves himself onto the bike with Ryoga's help.

The space he has to sit is small; he's wedged rather tightly between his driver's back and the end of the motorcycle.

He hears Ryoga sigh in front of him. "Kaito, you're gonna need to hold on to me," he casually informs him as if he's not suggesting something incredibly embarrassing.

"Excuse me?" said duelist demands incredulously, his hands remaining very much at his sides and refusing to hold on to his driver at his request.

"Look, you're gonna fall off if you don't have anything to hang on to," the shark snaps, his patience clearly thinning.

"Hey," Kaito argues back, now on the defensive. "Being blind doesn't mean my motor skills don't function anymore--"

"This is not a 'blind safety' kind of thing, this is a 'motorcycle safety' kind of thing," Ryoga cuts him off. "Now hold on to me unless you want to go flying as soon as I start this bike."

Unhappily grumbling the whole time, Kaito reluctantly wraps his arms around the waist in front of him. He shoots a glance at where he assumes Haruto is still standing. "We're never speaking of this again," the older brother solemnly informs the younger.

"What's 'this'?" Haruto innocently asks in that little-shit voice of his.

Kaito nods in agreement, appreciating his brother's dedication. "Exactly."

"Haruto, I'll have him back by ... probably dinnertime, maybe later," Ryoga cuts in. His back tenses in Kaito's grasp as he reaches into his pocket to grab what he assumes are his keys.

The older Tenjo mumbles something about this whole situation feeling like a date, but it's ignored by both of the others. "Sounds good," his little brother approves. "Keep an eye on him, okay?"

"Yeah, because I can't keep an eye on myself," Kaito gripes under his breath. Again, his unhelpful comment goes unnoticed.

He feels Ryoga move an arm - he's probably giving Haruto a thumbs up or something - before putting the keys into the ignition. The motorcycle roars to life, but it quickly quiets to a purr after it's started up.

Kaito barely has the time to say good-bye to his little brother before Ryoga hits up the kickstand, revs the bike, and accelerates away from the curb with a crash of thunder.

○○○

Even though Kaito's ridden a motorcycle before - thanks to Orbital 7's form, but the Tenjo only designed that model at Haruto's request, since he wanted to see a real-life "duel runner" from that favorite anime of his - it _has_ been a while since he's been on one.

This is also the first time he's been on a motorcycle _blind._

All he can do is hang on to Ryoga's waist as the shark weaves in and out of traffic like a madman. The wind buffets their clothes and fills their ears, making Kaito virtually deaf as well as blind.

He screws his eyes shut - as if it makes a difference - and tries to concentrate on his breathing, which is intensified by the helmet surrounding his face. Oddly enough, it's comforting.

It feels like a lifetime before the motorcycle comes to a stop. As Kaito gradually pulls himself out of his thoughts, he realizes that there's a faint chill on his hands, so different from the soft warmth of the spring air.

At that moment, he hears what sounds like a truck running over a mountain of glass only a few feet behind him. He violently flinches - he may or may not dig his fingernails into Ryoga's sides - in fear of the sudden explosion of sound.

Ryoga hisses in front of him and pries the other's fingers out of his sides. "Great Don Thousand, just chill already," he snarls. Kaito retracts his hands, hovering them uncertainly beside the shark's waist. "That was the garage door. We're home." _Oh._ Kaito lets his hands fall to his sides.

He feels a release in pressure on the motorcycle as Ryoga hops off; a moment later, he's taking Kaito's hand in his with a gruff "Come on". The Tenjo is helped out of his seat and onto the blessedly firm and steady ground. He sighs in relief and removes his helmet, freeing his overgrown hair. The slight chill in the garage caresses his face and tickles the back of his neck.

His host switches from holding his hand to gripping his elbow before leading them on a path through the garage that Kaito hopes is clear.

They make it across the concrete without a fuss, and the Tenjo thinks they might be home-free and--

Kaito trips on a stone step that Ryoga totally failed to warn him about and absolutely eats shit.

The shark lost his grip on the blind teen's elbow in his fall to his death; he quickly moves to help Kaito up and over the step. "Sorry," the Barian lamely apologizes, steadying the Tenjo at his sides in case he takes another fantastic fall. "I, uh, forgot to warn you. That step is always higher than I'm used to."

"Oh, fuck off," Kaito mutters, shaking himself loose from Ryoga's grasp. His face feels like it's on fire from becoming acquainted with the carpet, but if the Barian hasn't commented on it, there's probably no damage.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'll remember to warn you in the future," the alien continues to make amends. Kaito just shoots him a glare without any sight behind it and jabs his elbow at him, partially to annoy him, partially to get him to take his arm so he can guide him again - and hopefully not let him trip this time.

Ryoga takes the hint and receives his elbow once again in a firm grip. Once he's sure Kaito has composed himself, he leads him across the carpet for a few feet before ducking behind his guest and closing the garage door behind them. He quickly returns to his spot beside the Tenjo and continues guiding him down what the blond assumes is a hallway.

They pause together; the older teen feels the younger lift an arm, and there's the faint click of a light switch. Kaito silently ponders that he'll never have to worry about electricity for lights ever again; everything's black to him anyway. Of course, it would be terrifying as all hell to see him sitting in a room all alone in the dark, but hey, that's not his problem.

"Welcome to the Barian residence," Ryoga introduces him, pulling him out of his mind. He can hear a cocky smile in the alien's voice.

Kaito wishes he could see it. From what he's heard from Yuma, Ryoga and Rio lived in a mansion when they were little, and they've gone back to living in it after their revival. They've apparently taken in the rest of their Barian brethren, as well.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to ask," Ryoga's voice cuts smoothly through his thoughts like a knife through butter. "Have you eaten lunch yet?"

Kaito's growling stomach answers for him.

The smart tone returns to the alien's voice. "Apparently not," he muses, cleverly deducing the truth from the given evidence.

"I'll grab you something from the kitchen," Ryoga decides, taking hold of his arm once more and bringing him in a new direction. "What do you want? A sandwich, pasta, soup?"

A hot bowl of soup sounds like a relief from the relative chill that seems to dominate the spacious and empty mansion. Kaito tells him just this, but Ryoga remains silent. He probably forgot and nodded again, the blind teen thinks with a numbed smile.

They apparently reach their destination, since Ryoga sits him down in a comfortable dining room chair with an elegant backing. Kaito traces the carvings as he listens to the clattering of pots and pans that the alien moves in his effort to make some soup. The bashing of metal grates on his ears; Kaito closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to try to distract himself.

After far too long, Ryoga sets a steaming bowl in front of him on the dining room table. It smells heavenly; it was probably just from a can, but it already seems to be the best thing he's had the opportunity to eat in months.

On second thought, his host retrieves for him a spoon and piece of bread; Kaito immediately digs in and takes a sip of the liquid in front of him: it's tomato. Ryoga has done well.

As Kaito eats, he hears the squeak of the chair's legs on the floor across the table from him. The alien who has found his seat in the chair takes a sudden breath, as if to speak, but he says nothing. Kaito pauses in eating his lunch and raises an eyebrow at him. At his silent encouragement, Ryoga spills.

"Kaito, I'll just be honest with you," he begins, an uncertain tinge to his voice that makes his guest suspect he may not entirely believe in what he's about to say. "I brought you here because I want to help you duel again."

The blond freezes mid-dip, with his bread still half in the soup. "Are you sure that's even possible?" he asks after a pause, his voice low in expectation.

Ryoga seems to have been waiting for a question like this. "Of course it is," he insists. The chair squeaks across the ground as he scoots closer to the table. "There have been plenty of blind duelists in the past, and there are countless ways to compensate for ... uh, not being able to see the cards."

Kaito is liking where this is going less and less by the second. He finally eats the half-soup-soaked bread, but he pushes the rest of the bowl away from himself, his stomach flipping in unease. "Ryoga, I don't know..."

The alien doesn't listen to him. His voice is angled slightly downwards; he's looking at something on his phone. "Here, there's one where a woman used different-scented cards to differentiate them ... Another guy had specific patterns carved that were unique to each card, and another person even had cards specially printed with braille on them." He sounds slightly out of breath; he's likely awed by the impressive and clever tricks by people with the same condition as Kaito. Too bad the Tenjo can't come up with a solution on his own.

Kaito doesn't respond, he just sits there, uncomfortable in the dining room chair with the squeaky legs and the elegant backing that almost hurts to lean into. He barely suppresses a grimace when Ryoga reads out another impressive adaptation that the blond would never be able to replicate.

"One person even modified their duel disk to read out their cards to them. That's some insane technology right there."

Insane to a normal teenager like Ryoga, yes. But to Kaito? Wiring a duel disk to read out his cards to him would be one of the easier projects he's done -- that is, if he was able to see.

But he can't, therefore he can't tinker with anything, therefore literally nothing Ryoga is saying is helpful or successful in doing anything except getting on his nerves.

He hears the shark draw in another breath to describe some other inane method that won't work, but Kaito is having none of it.

The Tenjo suddenly rises out of his chair, training his searing look on his host as best he can. "Just stop it," he snarls. His voice feels weak. "None of this is going to help me."

Ryoga quickly defends himself with a typical, "Hey, you don't know that until you try it--". Kaito ignores him and cuts him off.

"You don't know what you're talking about. You're not the one who's blind here."

Even from several feet away, he can feel the shark bristling with agitation. "That's right, I'm not. Which is why I'm trying to help you, you ungrateful asshole. Do you really want me to sit by and do nothing?"

Kaito's hands, which had been gripping the back of his dining room chair in distress, are suddenly flung outwards. "Yes!! I don't want you to do anything that you wouldn't have done if I could see! I just want things back to normal!"

Now Ryoga is rising out of _his_ chair. "But things _aren't_ back to normal, Kaito. It doesn't matter if you acknowledge your condition or not; either way, it's still there. You need to grow up and face the truth."

"Shut up!!" It's a weak response, but it's the best the Tenjo can manage in a losing argument. Ryoga just doesn't _understand_...

And yet he won't shut up, even at the blind teen's request. "Look, whether you like it or not, you can't see," Ryoga snaps, reminding him of the painful fact.

"Gee, how'd you figure that out, Sherlock?" Kaito drawls, rolling his sightless eyes for emphasis. The shark ignores him.

"Even if you don't like your situation now, I'm still going to help you deal with it. So get your head out of your ass and learn to face your problems head-on."

Okay, that's it.

Kaito very much does _not_ like this situation, so he's not about to accept Ryoga's help. This smart-ass of an alien just assumed that Kaito needed his assistance; well, guess what, he _doesn't_.

Sure, without supervision he may pass out a lot, or accidentally grab the type of milk he hates, or slice open his hand on the fractured glass of his dead robot's wing, but that doesn't mean he needs _help._

Kaito is so fed up with Ryoga's high and mighty attitude that he's struggling to decide between flipping the table in his face (provided he has the strength to do that) and just straight-up leaving (provided he has the means and navigational skills to do so).

But at that moment, the phone that Kaito didn't realize he had in his pocket buzzes.

It's kinda his breaking point.

With a strangled yell, he yanks the interruptive phone out of his pocket and throws it onto the table. It's a miracle that it doesn't shatter upon impact.

"Why can't people get that I _can't fucking see their texts?!"_ Kaito cries out, his hands slamming down on the dining room table. Immediately, a lightning bolt of pain strikes his bad hand and runs up his entire arm, but he endures it with gritted teeth.

Ryoga is silent before him. The Tenjo stands his ground, seething, his fingertips brushing the bandages on his right hand. He can feel the shark's deep blue eyes boring into him, making his skin crawl.

He's just so _frustrated_ with how helpless and weak his blindness has made him, and he's furious at how he's guessing he became sightless in the first place: his photon transformations, thoroughly wracking his body over and over and over, all in hopes of securing enough Numbers to save his little brother.

And how did that turn out for him?

He didn't even get all the Numbers, Haruto was saved without his help, and his transformations ruined his eyesight.

He can't do anything right, not even read a couple texts.

When Ryoga speaks up, his voice is abnormally soft, with a strange emotion running through it; is that sorrow? "I won't help you with dueling if you don't want me to, but I can at least help you with your phone."

The offer is so casual that Kaito almost doesn't realize it's there. He freezes up, his eyes wide. "Excuse me?"

Without asking for permission, his host picks up his phone and quickly gets into it without the hindrance of having to input a passcode. He messes around with it for a few seconds, clicks something, and then, suddenly, Kaito hears a clear British woman's voice ring out from his smartphone, saying:

_"Text sent from Yuma at 13:06: hey kaito!! heard u were released from the hospital so i was wonderin if u wanted to hang out soon?"_

The voice reads it out in a halting speech, stumbling over his foreign name and the rather informal style of Yuma's writing. But it's understood well enough by its recipient.

Kaito stares at the space where the sound came from, silent for several seconds. "You can do that?" he finally asks quietly.

"Oh yeah, you can do plenty with Siri nowadays. Have you ever heard of the 'zero divided by zero' trick?" Ryoga responds, the smile returning to his voice. He seems to believe that things have calmed down.

"I ... Siri?" is all Kaito can say in response to whatever just came out of the alien's mouth. "What's Siri?"

Ryoga seems stunned into silence. The blond can almost imagine him gaping, his mouth opening and closing several times like the fish he loves using in his deck.

Wait, no, sharks don't breathe like that.

Whatever.

"Kaito ... you have an _iPhone_ , and you don't know what Siri is?" he finally manages. It sounds like he had a hard time getting the words out.

"Uh, no, clearly not, since I asked..." he mumbles, a little annoyed by the fact that he has to repeat himself.

Ryoga responds by addressing this 'Siri'. "Hey, Siri," he calls, his voice directed at his phone. "Call me 'The True Galaxy Eyes Master'."

Before Kaito can stumble over a protest, his phone answers in that robotic voice it has. "Alright. I will call you 'The True Galaxy Eyes Master' from now on."

The shark's probably grinning at his handiwork as he returns the phone to its rightful owner. "Whenever you have the chance, try accessing Siri around Mizael. He'll get so pissed; it'll be hilarious."

Kaito frowns at the device in his good hand. "So this thing can read out texts?" Ryoga presumably nods. "How do I access it again? Was it 'hey, Siri'?" Immediately, his phone vibrates, startling him. Caught off-guard, all he can manage is a floundering "uh..."

"Sorry, didn't catch that," the robotic voice coming from his iPhone responds. It's unnerving as all hell.

"Hey, Siri," Ryoga suddenly calls from across the table. "What's zero divided by zero?"

There's a beat. Then: "Imagine that you have zero cookies, and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get?" Kaito blinks. "See? It doesn’t make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no friends."

Another silence. And then Ryoga is guffawing at the insulted look on Kaito's face that he didn't realize he had. "Oh, that's glorious," he chuckles, sounding much more cheerful than usual. The Tenjo supposes it's good that he managed to secure some happiness by exploiting his ignorance.

"I don't like Siri," the blond mutters darkly, spitting out the name as if it was a sour grape.

"Yeah, well, you better get used to her," the shark remarks with a smirk in his tone. "You'll be needing her to have a functioning phone that you can use."

"Hey, Siri," Kaito suddenly requests the device's assistance. It buzzes to life accordingly in his palm. "Fuck you."

To his absolute indignation, Siri plays innocent and comes back with, "Sorry, didn't catch that. Do you still want me to call you The True Galaxy Eyes Master?"

Kaito doesn't have the chance to yell at the idiotic robot, since a new, familiar voice suddenly joins in on the conversation from the door frame.

"...Kaito?"

It's Mizael.

The Tenjo's about to look up and greet the Barian, but he's cut off by the unmistakable sound of air whistling over the fist that's headed directly towards his stomach.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if I thought last chapter was emotionally draining, then how bout I meet this chapter huh
> 
> i'm dying


	3. Kaito Tenjo Has a Panic Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a rather ... traumatizing run-in with Mizael, things start to calm down for Kaito. At least, that's what would happen in theory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I had the majority of this written for weeks but I'm a shit cuz I'm only just posting it now
> 
> enjoy tho there's a smaller dose of Angst in this one so enjoy it while you can

Mizael's fist hits him like a truck, and Kaito instantly crumbles to the floor, his shoulders shuddering as he struggles to draw in a breath after the Barian's punch pushed all the air out of his gut. The only thing he succeeds in doing is wheezing.

The blond alien steps closer, refusing to allow the Tenjo even a moment to rest. Kaito gasps in pain as Mizael's fist closes around the front of his hoodie and yanks him to his feet by the stretchy fabric; maybe wearing such loose clothing wasn't a good idea. He tightens his grip and takes advantage of his height by raising Kaito higher up until the shorter teen's toes are brushing the floor.

Mizael's fist brushes the tender skin of his throat, much like how he had confronted the Tenjo back in the hospital. He brings his hostage closer to his face and snarls in his ear; he's nearly level with the top of Kaito's mess of hair because of the alien's height. "Why didn't you tell me you were blind?"

If Kaito couldn't breathe before, he certainly can't breathe now. Mizael's words shock the air out of his lungs, and he feels like his heart stops. _Why is he so mad?_ he wonders through the pain, since he doesn't have the strength to speak.

If the alien can hear his thoughts, he ignores him. His knuckles burn fire onto Kaito's neck, and the ice in the Barian's voice chills him to the bone and renders him unable to move. "You absolute coward," he hisses, his breath warm on his ear.

He didn't think it was possible, but the pressure around his neck increases. Kaito makes a terrible, choking gargle in his throat as his lungs reach for air but find none.

This seems to be the trigger for Ryoga, who had, apparently, been standing by, too shocked to make a move. "Mizael, what the hell?!" He hears a pair of footsteps stomp across the kitchen floor, and suddenly, hands are ripping Mizael's own hands off of his throat.

Immediately, Kaito collapses to the ground, his knees buckling beneath him. He hits the tile with a loud _thump_ , but his neck is blessedly free of those fingers trapping the oxygen from reaching his lungs, so he takes a long, shuddering breath that feels like it runs through his whole body.

As Kaito works on returning the air flow to his system, he hears the two aliens scuffling above him. Unsure of how their fight may escalate, he scrambles away from their feet using the palms of his hands; his injured right hand quickly explodes in pain, and he reflexively clutches it to his chest, stopping his backwards retreat. Hopefully he's far away enough from the two Barians.

He hears Ryoga growl above him, a grunt forcing itself from his mouth as he shoves the blond assailant away from his victim. "The fuck was that for?!" he yells, his voice catching a little.

Mizael answers his question with his own. "What is _he_ doing here?" he probably jabs one of his long, pointed fingers at the blind teen crumpled upon the floor. His tone is accusing, angry. It bites through Kaito's skin like a blizzard.

"I invited him over?! Why do you care so much?" Ryoga quickly adds another question to the fray. Maybe they wouldn't be so confused if they stopped asking so many _questions_.

The hiss in the other alien's voice makes his blood run cold. "I don't want _coward_ s over. Kaito can _leave."_

The Tenjo struggles to get in enough breath to defend himself, but Ryoga beats him to it. "Are you saying he's a coward because he's ... _blind?"_

Mizael hesitates, and his pause is more than enough to tell the other two that's precisely the reason. Any breath that Kaito might have gathered is, once again, lost. Luckily, the shark interrogates his fellow Barian for him.

"And why is that a problem?" Ryoga pushes, now on the offensive. Kaito dimly notes that it's rather touching that the purple-haired teen is so quick to defend him.

The silence that follows his question is deafening. It feels like an eternity before Mizael finally speaks.

"He can't duel if he can't see," the blond teen reasons, voicing a fact that Kaito figured out long ago for himself. "He's ... running away from another fight with me."

It's at this moment that Kaito realizes three things:

A) Mizael is a shit liar.

B) Mizael is, in fact, not mad at Kaito, but at himself.

and

C) Kaito's about to have a heart attack.

Okay, not really. But it sure as hell feels like it.

His heart's racing a thousand miles per hour, beating a terrible, all too loud rhythm in his tight chest. Kaito's one unbound hand feels sweaty, and it slips on the smooth kitchen tile. The shortness of breath returns to him, and he's sure that, if his vision wasn't all darkness, he's sure he'd see the creeping black tendrils of impending unconsciousness at the edges of his sight.

He hears Ryoga yell something indistinguishable above from his pathetic spot on the floor. Desperate, Kaito turns his face upwards, as if he's hoping he'll be able to watch their faces if he just looks at them directly enough.

And suddenly, he can see Mizael.

Time slows down. The air becomes absolutely suffocating, and Kaito seems to have traded his blindness for paralysis. His legs feel rooted in place, and his arms move through syrup. His fingers holding his cards are stiff - wait, _cards?_

He turns his gaze on his hands - yes, he can see his cards - and he figures out that, yes, he's dueling. His dull gray eyes flick up to observe the blond alien across from him; his eyes seem to be the only part of him that's moving at normal speed. Everything else is stuck in slow motion. Even his breathing, which is the only sound he can hear alongside his heartbeat, is frightfully delayed.

And yet, he watches Mizael draw a card from his custom duel disk with startling speed. He seems unaffected by the same heaviness that clogs Kaito's muscles. Even from a distance, the Tenjo can see the crease in the Barian's brow that suggests a smirk on his mouthless face.

"My card has arrived, Kaito," the alien taunts, his voice far too loud in his ears to be standing so far away. "It won't be long till you've accepted the truth: that I am the true Galaxy Eyes Master!!" His blond hair flies up in a fury as he slams a magic card onto his duel disk: Rank-up-Magic - The Seventh One.

Wind immediately whips around the playing field, but Kaito can't feel any of it; he's slowly realizing that he's completely covered. Even his face is guarded from the airless atmosphere by a thick glass. A panicked beep suddenly sounds in his ears, which he ignores in light of the giant dragon that reveals itself before him.

"Behold!! Number 107: Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon!!"

Mizael's voice is almost lost in the roar that the creature gives as it lands upon the still, gray dust. Kaito can feel his suit shaking; whether it's from the volume of the cry or from his own fear, he can't tell.

The creature's majesty is unfathomable, with its flashing dark scales and the veins of bright magenta that carve glowing scars into its skin. It roars so loudly that it feels like the crater they stand upon is going to split in two.

"Impressive," Kaito remarks outside of his own free will. His eyes dart to the side, where he has just realized that his own dragon stands ready for battle. Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon hovers there in all its dazzling glory. The light flowing from its wings reflect off the glass covering the duelist's face.

"Oh, I'm not done yet," Mizael laughs. Despite being across the field and covered by his beast of a dragon, his voice is still incredibly loud in his opponent's ears. "This Magic card allows me to instantaneously Rank-Up Tachyon!"

Kaito's eyes widen. His breathing shortens as the alien declares a Chaos XYZ Evolution to the still, silent sky of the moon. His chant summoning the creature leaves his opponent dizzy.

"Feast your eyes, Kaito!" Mizael calls over the buffeting of the wind that has restarted from the new summon. "Gaze upon Neo Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon with terror!!"

There's a flash of horrible, mercilessly bright golden scales that sears his retinas, and then the world goes dark once again for Kaito Tenjo.

He wakes up with a gasp ripping itself from his throat. Well, perhaps waking up isn't the right word for it, since he's not sure if he was unconscious in the first place.

Either way, he quickly comes to realize that he's still on the tile of the kitchen floor, and Ryoga's gripping his shoulders and shaking him like his life depends on it. "Kaito!!" His name echoes around the otherwise silent room.

Said teen's eyes slowly flutter open, staring up at the ceiling without sight. Immediately, he feels the startled shark's fingernails bite into his skin. It hurts, but at least it helps him come to more quickly.

"Goddamn, Kaito..." he hears the Barian mumble as he helps him sit up against the legs of a dining room chair. "You were shaking and totally unresponsive ... I thought you were having a heart attack or something."

"So did I," the older teen quips, his voice sounding unlike his own. He's beginning to notice the relative quiet of the kitchen now. "Is Mizael still in here?" he manages, partially afraid to hear the answer.

"No, I kicked him out," Ryoga answers, a bitter note to his voice. "It was a bad idea to bring you here; I should have known his pride would act up again."

He hears the shark settle down on the ground beside him, apparently having lost all will to get Kaito upright. The blond speaks up so quietly he wonders if Ryoga could hear him if the room wasn't silent. "You knew he was lying, right?"

"Of course." The heavy sigh beside him makes Kaito's heart ache. "He doesn't have to say it for me to know that he feels like absolute shit for killing you. And when you came back blind, well ... that definitely didn't make him feel any better."

"He needs to get over himself, then," Kaito grumbles. "He's not the one who can't see anymore."

He can hear a smirk in Ryoga's voice. "Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that."

A silence stretches out within the kitchen, settling itself between the two teens and making itself comfortable. Kaito's words hesitate on the tip of his tongue, his limbs feel stiff.

Finally, the shark speaks. "You wanna get outta here?" he asks, guessing the sentence that Kaito was trying to form in his mouth.

He can't nod his head fast enough.

○○○

"Bingo!!"

"Yuma, for the last time, you say _'Go Fish'_ when you get a set of four, not bingo." Ryoga's exasperated sigh from a few feet away almost brings a snicker to Kaito's lips.

"Oh," the youngest teen exclaims. "Then Go Fish!"

There's a faint smack as he chucks his cards at the carpeted floor of Kaito's bedroom. A victory cheer from the Tsukumo accompanies this action.

"That's 1-4," the oldest teen announces, patting the ground near where he thinks Yuma threw his playing cards.

Ryoga scowls across from him. "This really isn't fair, you know. You guys are teamed up against me."

Kaito rolls his sightless eyes. "I can't see the cards, dumbass." You'd think the shark would know better by now. It's been several weeks since the Tenjo visited the Barian household - he hasn't gone back since - but Ryoga has still not apparently come to terms with the fact that he's blind.

The alien takes the insult in stride, however. "Yeah, you're a pretty useless team member to Yuma, huh?" The smirk in his voice is probably supposed to irritate the blond, but he brushes it off with a shrug.

Said teammate quickly comes to his defense. "Don't talk about Kaito like that!" Yuma protests, in his signature Don't-Talk-Shit-About-My-Friends kind of way.

Ryoga counters him with some teasing remark, and once Kaito realizes that the two rivals are about to return to their usual banter and totally abandon their game of Go Fish, their host tunes them out and focuses on the rustle of the wind as it wanders through his window, explores his messy room, and leaves the same way it came in.

The last month has been wonderfully ... calm, surprisingly.

After his little run-in with Mizael - like the Barian household, the Tenjo has not made any effort to contact him - it seems that life has finally stopped trying to beat Kaito up behind the school and take his lunch money.

Or, to put it more simply, people have stopped assaulting him and the panic attacks have started to become less common.

Ryoga and Yuma have returned to their usual schedule of school, leaving Kaito alone much more often. He would normally have Haruto, but he, too, has started attending school now that he's recovered. It's saddening to find that he isn't around as much anymore, but at least Kaito can be a good older brother and help him with his homework. Science is what he explains the best.

Of course, he can explain just about any 3rd grade subject to his 9-year-old brother, but science is the most interesting. Haruto's learning stuff about states of matter, so it isn't quite as intriguing as inter-dimensional space travel, but hey, at least it's better than grammar.

However, all the time he would have spent with his friends or his brother is now free. He'd been having some trouble trying to figure out what to do with all his free time, until Haruto had suggested it to him: learn how to read Braille.

If he's being completely honest, the thought didn't really appeal to him at first. He wasn't exactly an avid reader when he could see, so why would that change when he _can't?_

But at his little brother's insistence, he started taking lessons on the bizarre new language. In the past month, he's managed to distinguish between the bumps and grooves that make up the alphabet, but he's still working out how they all fit together in sentences and words.

Suddenly, Yuma's voice breaks through the drone of his and Ryoga's bantering. "Hey, Kaito! Earth to Kaito!" The teen immediately startles, his thoughts vanishing like morning dew in the sun.

When he's sure he's gotten his friend's attention, Yuma continues. "You wanna ref for my duel with Shark? Your honor's on the line."

As dramatic as his words sound, being the judge for a duel where he can't see the cards sounds incredibly ... not fun. "No, not really," Kaito mumbles, his words coming out blatantly rude. He turns onto his side, laying his head upon the carpet and turning his back on the two boys. "I'm not in the mood for Duel Monsters." He hears Ryoga scoff in distaste behind him, but he doesn't care.

"You haven't touched a trading card in a month, Kaito," the shark criticizes him. "You'd think you've given up or something."

Immediately, he twists his head around, training a glare so intense upon Ryoga that the shark, for a brief moment, thinks he's regained his sight. "You'd think it'd be a little hard to duel when you can't see what you're doing," he counters. His voice has a bitter iciness to it that feels like it drops the room by several degrees.

He can practically see the Barian bristle in agitation, but Yuma intersects before they can get into another fight. They've been having a lot of those lately.

"Guys, just stop it! Kaito doesn't have to help with our duel if he doesn't want to," Yuma declares, apparently their new decision-maker.

Kaito lies back down, his chest hitting the ground with an angry huff. "Good," is all he has to say on the matter.

Ryoga starts mumbling some rather rude things behind his back, but the blond's mind is already re-focused on the air coming through the window.

As he listens to the gentle, calming rustle of the breeze, Kaito wonders if a side effect of going blind is becoming less petty.

If that's the case, then maybe that alien could stand to lose his eyesight for a day or two.

○○○

The sharp _clink_ of his white cane hitting a leg of the dining table is all Kaito needs to hear to know he's reached his destination.

He settles down with his sandwich, making himself comfortable in his chair. He leans his cane against his thigh, so that it's always within reach.

When his father suggested he use a long white cane to get around, Kaito was not very thrilled, to say the least. It doesn't exactly keep his secret of sightlessness whenever he's swinging the bright pole around his feet.

But he has to admit, it does help. He even made it to the local sandwich shop and ordered lunch on his own.

He probably would have gone with his father or Haruto, but one's at work and the other's at school, so he was home alone. No one will be there to greet him at the door when he returns. Perhaps this wasn't the best idea.

But as his hand brushes against his phone in his sweatshirt pocket, he feels reassured. He can navigate his way home all by his lonesome, thanks to the power of Google Maps. Whoever implemented the voice feature for that app is an absolute _saint._

With his nerves mostly settled, he digs into his sandwich. The turkey melts onto his tongue (quite literally, since it's, surprisingly, a turkey melt), and he finds himself biting back a chuckle as he remembers his brief vegetarian phase a few years back when he was training under Chris. God, how did he ever think he could survive without the majesty of meat?

As he chews, he takes a moment to listen to the song being played over the speakers in the cozy sandwich shop. It's an old, ancient tune that he faintly remembers the cords to, but his father probably knows it. He's old, too, so he has to know it. It's practically law.

Despite the song's age, he finds his foot tapping along to the beat. His sneakers keeping time with the tune only add to the friendly din of the sandwich shop. Surprisingly, the sound isn't oppressive and ominous, like he finds most loud noises to be nowadays. Instead, it's comforting; he's been to this sandwich place more times than he can count. It wouldn't feel the same without the drone of voices and music lazily playing in the background.

Despite the volume of his surroundings, however, he hears the door to the sandwich shop open clear as the bell that rings as the door slides open. Kaito wonders in the back of his mind about how the shop is doing on table space at the moment; this newcomer may have to sit at his own table. If it comes to that, he'll just eat his sandwich as he walks home. He's not in the mood for awkward social interaction with strangers.

However, it turns out that the new customer, is, in fact, not a stranger.

He hears boots scuffing the wood of the shop before the chair across from him lets out an obnoxious whine as this mysterious character pulls it out for themself.

Kaito curiously raises an eyebrow at the newcomer; that definitely wasn't enough time to order a sandwich, so how come they just came to sit down across from him first thing? Seems a little weird.

It doesn't seem too weird when the "stranger" speaks.

"Kaito Tenjo, would you look at that," Thomas Arclight drawls from across the table. His fingers tap rhythmically upon its surface; whether it's to the beat of the song over the speakers or to the tune of his own bullshit, Kaito can't tell.

The blind teen doesn't respect the duelist in front of him enough to stop eating his sandwich. He takes the time to swallow a bite before shooting a fiery glare at his unfortunate tablemate. "I can't look," he deadpans, not even bothering to greet the Arclight.

"Oh right, my brother told me about that," he comments, sounding genuinely taken aback. "It was kinda disappointing to hear, honestly. Now we'll never be able to duel ever agai--"

"Why the hell are you here?" the blind teen growls, not in the mood for Thomas's bullshit. He knew the boy when he was little, when Kaito was still learning under Chris. Thomas had been, and still is, an unlovable and intolerable little shit. He knows the best way to deal with him is to get straight to the point.

He hears a rustling of clothing that's probably the result of a shrug. "I was picking up lunch for my brothers and my dad," the Arclight explains. "And you just happened to be here. There's really no need to get so defensive."

The drumming of his fingers against the table stops, and Kaito, acting fast, just barely saves his drink from Thomas's thirsty hand. "Get your own drink," he grumbles, pointedly taking a sip. Honestly, he doesn't believe the duelist's explanation for a second. "This is a pretty weird shopfor you to grab lunch for your family. I know it's far away from your place."

He notices that Thomas is a little more hesitant to answer this time. "Okay, I admit it," he finally concedes with a sigh. "Chris wanted me to check in on you, since you haven't been out too recently. I honestly wasn't planning on stopping by, but then you here at this sandwich shop while I was trying to avoid my responsibilities." His smile crinkles his voice. "I guess that's destiny, huh?"

Kaito, however, is distracted by his earlier words. Chris has been worrying about him? Frankly, the Tenjo is a little flattered, but he can't agree with his choice in brothers when he had to decide who should be the one to check on him.

Just trying to get him to leave at this point, Kaito waves a hand in the direction of the counter. "Weren't you going to get lunch for your family?"

He hears the chair squeak as Thomas startles in his seat. "Shit, right. Forgot about that. I'll be back in a minute!" He then dashes out of his chair, leaving it annoyingly far from the table. Didn't that kid ever learn to push in chairs once he's done sitting in them?

Whatever, he won't have to deal with him for much longer, anyway.

The Tenjo waits a few beats of the song playing over the speakers (during his encounter with Thomas, it changed from an old, vaguely familiar song to another equally old, vaguely familiar song) before rising out of his own chair. He takes his cane in his right hand - luckily his laceration is nearly completely healed, all it is now is an angry, raised scar - and the third he has of his sandwich in his left.

He takes a moment to push in both of their chairs before leaving the sandwich shop.

Kaito steps outside into the warm spring air. His hair - he did get it trimmed, but it's still longer than he's used to - tickles his face in the breeze. It's a lovely day for escaping bullshit brothers.

He wraps up his turkey melt in the paper it came in and sticks it in his sweatshirt pocket, removing his phone in exchange.

"Hey, Shitty." As the device rumbles to life, Kaito can't help but crack a smile. That moment when he found that Siri responds to that name was absolutely glorious. "How do I get home?"

The device does its job and calculates directions for the way home. As soon as the Google Maps voice takes over, he sets off.

His pace is slow; he has to swing his white pole in a wide arc in front of him in order to detect any obstructions. But Google Maps is patient with him and lets him keep his step.

Kaito slowly eases into this bizarre set-up, and he's prepared for the mile walk home when--

"Hey, Kaito! Hold up!"

Thomas finds him.

Kaito doesn't stop.

Despite this, the Arclight swiftly catches up, since he is able to take long and daring strides without fear of accidentally running into the middle of the road. "You need to get home or something?" he asks, barely out of breath. "I figured you'd be home alone at this time of day."

Suddenly, he feels Thomas's free hand - the other one holds his bag of sandwiches - take his right arm in guidance.

Immediately, Kaito rips his elbow out of his grasp and backs away from him, glowering at the teen.

He doesn't really enjoy all the _touching_ that comes along with being blind in the first place, but it's tolerable if _he's_ the one who initiates it. But when others assume he needs someone to guide him by the elbow like he's an infant?

Well, that just pisses him off.

"Don't touch me," he snaps, brandishing his long white cane in front of him like a weapon.

Luckily, Thomas backs off and doesn't make any attempt to get closer. Unfortunately, he doesn't leave.

"Sorry," he laments rather lamely. "I assumed you'd want the help."

Kaito gradually lowers his cane, his stiffened shoulders slowly relaxing as he lets his guard down. He didn't even realize how fast his heart was beating until it begins to slow down.

"I don't want your help," the Tenjo snaps, the ice in his voice cold in the springtime sun. "Now why are you still here? You've checked on me, you got your lunches. Now just leave me alone."

His tone would be enough to make any weak-willed person shy away from him, but Thomas is not a weak-willed person. Nor is he very smart.

"Oh, I was gonna head to the Starbucks nearby and I wondered if you wanted to come along with," the Arclight offers. "It'd be my treat."

Kaito would be more angry if he knew what the hell Thomas was talking about. "Starbucks?" he asks, his voice betraying his confusion.

The Arclight is silent for so long that Kaito wonders if he managed to sneak off without the blind teen realizing. "Kaito, you don't know what a Starbucks is?" he finally asks, his voice low in tension.

At the shake of his head, Thomas lets out a gasp that sounds like he's been stabbed. "No way. There's no way. How have you been alive longer than me and yet you've had it, like, 500x fewer times than I have!"

Kaito is too tired to tell him that since he's technically had it 0 times, 500 times 0 would still be 0 times.

Whatever, Thomas doesn't get math, anyway.

"Look, I'm tired," the Tenjo growls, fiddling with his phone in one hand. "I just wanna go home."

"It's not a far walk," the other boy promises. "Come on, if you do this now, I'll never bother you about it ever again."

That doesn't mean that Thomas won't bother him about _other_ things, but he does drive a pretty hard bargain.

"Fine," he finally grumbles, pocketing his phone and sticking out his elbow for Thomas to take. He's clearly thrown off by this sudden change in attitude, so he takes a beat to receive his arm once again. The squeeze he gives him is probably supposed to be reassuring, but it's just unnerving.

Thomas leads them in the total opposite direction of home. He keeps his pace generously slow for his blind companion, and, unlike Ryoga, he warns Kaito whenever there's a sudden dip in the pavement or a hazard to avoid.

With the Arclight guiding him, he doesn't have to depend on his cane quite so much, which gives him a bit of a break.

Honestly, he might even call Thomas a pleasant companion if not for the fact that he won't shut up. He mostly talks about the duels he's won in the Pro Leagues, which Kaito, frankly, could not care less about.

The fact that Kaito's so adverse to dueling is a little worrying, but he's sure his fighting spirit will come back.

Eventually.

The good thing about the scarred teen chattering in his ear is that the walk passes by relatively quickly. As they enter the shop, the strong scent of coffee ambushes them. Kaito feels more energized already.

Thomas finds them a spot and sits him down while he goes off to order "the best drink on the menu" for the both of them. Kaito welcomes the silence of being left alone.

He sinks into the lovely cushy chair and closes his eyes. It's so comfy in here, with the faint drone of pop music over the speakers and the scent of coffee that accentuates every breath, he feels like he could fall asleep right here and now.

So he does.

Thomas wakes him up by tapping his knee and pressing a cold drink into his free hand. "Drink this," he insists, excitement in his voice.

He figures it'll make the Arclight go away faster, so Kaito complies. He sips from the straw and quickly tastes a sweet, chocolate flavor combined with marshmallow and whipped cream. He quickly pulls away, his eyes wide from the taste.

"What is this?" he asks accusingly, waving around his drink like a madman. It's a miracle it doesn't spill.

"It's a s'mores frappuccino!" Thomas offers, taking a sip from his own drink, which is presumably the same thing. "It's godly, isn't it?"

Kaito just stares at him as best he can. Then he decides to give the "godly" drink a second shot and takes a quick taste from the straw.

Okay ... maybe it isn't as bad as he originally thought.

At Thomas's annoying prompt - _"So? What'd you think?"_ \- he just mumbles, "It's too sweet." He doesn't have quite the sweet tooth that Haruto has. "...But I guess it's good."

The middle brother makes some sort of bizarre victory cry in the middle of the Starbucks that will probably get them kicked out of the coffee shop. Whatever makes him happy, Kaito supposes.

The two finish their drinks, making small talk (Thomas, of course, is the one who does most of the talking). Finally, they figure that the Arclight should probably get his sandwiches back to his family before they wonder if their middle brother accidentally got himself killed on the way back.

But at Thomas's insistence, Kaito gets walked back to his house. After shutting the door behind his back, Kaito realizes with a shock that he hates the brother considerably less.

○○○

Kaito thought he was done with Arclight encounters for the day when he left Thomas behind at the door, but that evening proves otherwise.

The Tenjo steps into his blessedly cool lab after an evening of being grilled by his father - he really shouldn't have let it slip that he, a helpless blind teen who can't defend himself, went off on his own with nothing but a phone and a cane to guide him - and lets out a heavy sigh as he leans against the wall. Family is tiring sometimes.

He just stands there, the hum of his computer comforting in his ears. Finally, he steadies his cane against the ground and is about to walk deeper into his lair when--

\--he suddenly hears a crash from deeper within his lab.

Immediately, Kaito freezes. He's not alone in the room.

"Who's there?" he calls out cautiously. His cane rests poised in front of him, ready to defend himself if this possible robber decides to take advantage of his state.

Instead, in the air in which Kaito expected to remain silent, a familiar voice fills it.

"Evening, Kaito," Christopher greets him, his tone warm, albeit a little tired. "I apologize for startling you."

The blond teen's stiffened shoulders begin to settle now that the mystery is solved, but that doesn't explain why Chris is in his lab, alone, without his permission. Kaito takes a few hesitant steps forward before frowning at the Arclight. "What are you doing in here?" he demands, not bothering to return the other's greeting.

Chris remains silent for a moment, thinking over his answer. "I'm working on Orbital 7," he finally responds, if lamely.

For the second time within a minute, Kaito startles. "Orbital?!" For the past month, he'd totally brushed the poor robot aside. But he's not entirely to blame; he can't exactly rebuild a robot that he can't see. So he just had assumed he would never get him working again. The scar on his hand was the machine's last parting gesture to his master.

Or so he thought.

"Why are you trying to fix him?" Kaito finally asks, stumbling forward to join Chris beside his late faithful robot. He traces a finger down the device's sides; they feel ugly and scarred and bruised, just like Kaito.

"Well, I was thinking..." Chris picks up something from his lab table with a _clink._ He presses it into the blond's free hand: it feels like a grip with a sort of extension attached to it. "I was thinking that Orbital could be a sort of ... seeing eye robot?"

All Kaito can do is blink. He squeezes what he quickly realizes is a handle in his grasp, and it dawns on him. "Do you think that could actually work?" he asks quietly. He hates how timid and small his voice sounds in the large, echoing lab.

Chris places a cold hand over his. "I'm not as much of a mechanic as you, but I do believe it's possible." The Arclight's other hand runs down the metal exterior of the robot he hopes to revive. "We can scrap many of his forms, as well. You won't exactly need to fly anymore, so we can get rid of these fractured wings."

Kaito feels his scar throb.

"So all he needs to do is just talk and walk?" the blind teen summarizes, a smirk on his lips. "Seems too easy to me."

"For you, perhaps," his former mentor responds dryly. "But I'll be doing most of the reassembling here." At Kaito's playful scoff, he continues. "So, are you really up for this?"

The shorter teen shrugs. "Ready as I'll ever be, I suppose. It's not like this will be getting any better." At 'this', his hand ghosts over his eyes, a painful reminder of his condition.

Despite his disability, he can practically see the quiet smile that forms upon Chris's face. "Then let's get to work."


End file.
